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THE  GREAT 
AMERICAN  MYTH 


The  True  Story  of  Lincoln's  Murder 


^GEORGE  S.BRYAN 


$3.75 


THE  GREAT 
AMERICAN  MYTH 

The  True  Story  of  Lincoln's  Murder 

By  GEORGE  S.  BRYAN 

The  circumstances  surrounding  the 
murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln  have, 
through  the  inadequacy  of  contempo- 
rary accounts,  through  deliberate  mis- 
representation from  a  variety  of  motives, 
and  through  public  credulity,  given  rise 
to  a  plethora  of  legends,  fantasies  and 
falsehoods  which  go  to  make  up  the 
great  American  myth.  No  other  single 
event  in  its  history  has  so  affected  this 
country.  The  assassination  of  Lincoln 
stood  out  in  people's  minds  in  the  same 
way  that  a  solar  eclipse  or  a  convulsion 
of  nature  had  stood  out  in  earlier  ages. 
From  it  people  dated  things  before  and 
after. 

In  this  scholarly  yet  exciting  volume 
Mr.  Bryan,  well  known  as  an  editor  and 
historian,  reconstructs  the  dramatic 
story  of  this  great  national  calamity, 
winnowing  the  truth  from  the  rank 
crop  of  contradictory  evidence  and  dis- 
torted facts.  At  the  same  time  he  tells 
of  the  rise  of  the  vast  and  mysterious 
body  of  mythology  which  has  deluded 
the  public  for  seventy-five  years  and 
which  is  still  being  given  currency  by 
so-called  historians.  He  has  spent  years 
of  study  and  research  on  this  neglected 
historical  area,  and  "The  Great  Ameri- 
can Myth"  is  beyond  question  an  impor- 
tant and  original  contribution  to  a 
subject  which  has  been  obscured  by  con- 
troversy, suspicion  and  confusion.  In  ad- 
dition to  undertaking  a  more  thorough 
search    of    contemporary    newspapers 

( Continued  on  back  flap ) 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


THE  GREAT 

AMERICAN 

MYTH 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://archive.org/details/greatamericanmytOObrya 


I  ■ccdi-Um  to  tho  Ac*  of  OngHM 


No.  «03    Vol.  XXI 


NEW    YORK,   MAY   20,    1865. 


[PBICB  10  C»UT».      tfw^H 


The  sketch  below  was  furnished  by  one  of  the  two  officers  employed  in  the  duty  of  sinking  the  hody  of  Booth  in  the  middle  of 
the  Potomac.     Although  not  authorised  to  divulge  his  name,  I  am  able  to  vouch  for  the  truth  of  the  representation. 

New  York.  May  10th.  1865.  F   LESLIE. 


This   imaginative   front-page   engraving   in    Frank   Leslie's   was   entitled:    "The 
Assassin's  End— Final  Disposition  of  the  Body  of  John  Wilkes  Booth— an  Au- 
thentic Sketch" 


THE  GREAT 

AMERICAN 

MYTH 


BY  GEORGE  S.  BRYAN 


CARRICK  &  EVANS,  INC.  NEW  YORK 


COPYRIGHT,  1940,  BY 
GEORGE  S.  BRYAN 


PRINTED   IN    THE   UNITED    STATES    OF   AMERICA 
BY   QUINN    &   BODEN    COMPANY,    INC.,    RAHWAY,    N.   J. 


173.711,3  i 

£3  %4-*r 


CONTENTS 

Foreword  ix 

1.  FEDERAL  CITY,  1860-1865  3 

2.  A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  13 

3.  THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  51 

4.  THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  75 

5.  "A  TURN  TOWARDS  THE  EVIL"  97 

6.  CHARITY  AND  HATE  127 

7.  THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  145 

8.  PANDEMONIUM  168 

9.  TERROR  BY  NIGHT  186 

10.  FLIGHTS  END  228 

11.  THIS  WAS  HE  259 

12.  FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  324 
Afterword  382 
Acknowledgments  394 
Bibliography  396 
Index  408 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"the  assassin's  end"  Frontispiece 

THE    CAPITOL    AT    WASHINGTON    AS    IT    LOOKED    IN    THE    EARLY 

DAYS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR  l8 

LINCOLN  "IN  DISGUISE"  52 

THE  RICHMOND  THEATRE  IN    1865  84 

JOHN  WILKES  BOOTH  ll6 

the  three  booths  in  "julius  caesar"  148 

ford's  theater,  in  washington  151 

mrs.  Lincoln's  note  to  grant  160 

ground  plan  of  ford's  170 

the  "state  box"  at  the  time  of  the  murder  208 

"STATE  box"  AT  ford's,  FROM  THE  STAGE  212 

JOHN   BOOTH  AND  A   "DOUBLE"  244 

JOHN  T.   FORD'S  TELEGRAM  TO  EDWIN  BOOTH  276 

A  PART  OF  THE  BOOTH  LOT  IN  GREEN  MOUNT  AS  IT  FORMERLY 

APPEARED  308 

THE   REV.    J.    G.    ARMSTRONG,    JOHN    ST.    HELEN,    "JOHN    WILKES 

BOOTH,   AGED   38"  340 

SOUVENIRS   OF  JOHN   BOOTH  372 


Foreword 


Always  there  have  been  men  whom  the  world  could  not  will- 
ingly let  die.  Such  were  Friedrich  Barbarossa  and  Holger  Danske. 
Such  was  the  elusive  Comte  de  Saint-Germain— that  "odd  man," 
who,  said  Horace  Walpole,  "professes  that  he  does  not  go  by  his 
right  name,"  and  whom  Andrew  Lang  styled  "a  will-o'-the-wisp." 
Such  was  Ahasuerus,  whom  the  Bishop  of  Schleswig  met  at  Ham- 
burg in  1542  and  who  was  encountered  near  Salt  Lake  City  by  the 
Mormon  O'Grady  as  late  as  1868.  Such  were  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth, Goffe  the  Regicide,  Alexander  the  First  of  Russia,  Jack 
Sheppard,  the  "Lost  Dauphin"  of  France. 

In  a  corner  of  the  Luxembourg  Gardens,  amid  the  early  chill 
of  a  December  morning  of  1815,  Marshal  Ney  was  executed  by 
a  firing-squad.  But  years  afterward,  in  the  distant  Carolinas,  folk 
recognized  the  "Bravest  of  the  Brave"  in  the  person  of  a  myste- 
rious school-teacher.  Far-flung  but  vain  was  official  search  for 
Johann  Salvator,  Archduke  of  Austria,  who  had  vanished  with  the 
bark  Santa  Margarita.  Yet  rumors  were  to  tell  of  him  as  a  miner 
in  Canada  and  a  grocer  in  Texas;  as  factory  worker  in  Ohio,  sol- 
dier with  the  Boers,  patient  in  a  New  York  hospital. 

Rudolf  of  Habsburg  and  Lord  Kitchener  alike  reached  cer- 
tainly their  mortal  end,  but,  with  Arnold's  Scholar  Gipsy,  each 

. . .  long  was  seen  to  stray, 
Seen  by  rare  glimpses. 

Saturnine  Ambrose  Bierce,  enigmatic  Lawrence  of  Arabia  were 
both  in  common  talk  held  back  from  Orcus  and  somewhere  con- 

ix 


x  FOREWORD 

tinued  to  walk  the  earth.  It  is  an  oft-repeated  tale— one  that  doubt- 
less will  continue  to  be  heard. 

Strange  and  involved  beyond  measure  are  the  variations  of  it. 
The  real  Dmitri,  heir  to  the  throne  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  was  mur- 
dered when  a  child.  Yet  three  false  Dmitris  successively  appeared. 
The  first,  actually  crowned  tsar,  was  killed  in  Moscow  before  a 
year  was  out,  but  a  militant  following  promptly  hailed  the  sec- 
ond. Moreover,  although  the  two  in  no  point  resembled  each 
other,  the  widow  of  the  first  soon  acknowledged  the  second  as 
her  former  husband! 

Scores  of  witnesses  (including  the  family  solicitor,  household 
and  personal  servants,  country  gentlemen,  farmers,  physicians, 
clergymen,  and  fellow-officers  of  the  dragoon-guards)  identified 
Arthur  Orton,  the  Tichborne  claimant,  as  Roger  Tichborne.  So, 
indeed,  did  Roger  Tichborne's  mother,  the  dowager  Lady  Tich- 
borne; and  though  she  did  not  live  to  be  a  witness,  her  affidavit 
was  admitted  in  court.  Thousands  of  Britons  stood  fiercely  for 
Arthur  Orton  and  contributed  to  a  popular  fund  in  his  behalf. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  not  Roger  Tichborne.  A  criminal  trial  duly 
revealed  him  as  a  monstrous  perjurer;  and  he  might  have  been  in- 
dicted as  a  forger,  too,  had  the  Crown  thus  willed.  Most  of  those 
who  shouted  for  him  ignored  cheerfully  the  evidence  in  the  case. 
As  Lord  Maugham  puts  it,  Quod  homines  credere  volunt,  id  facile 
credunt:  Mankind  readily  believes  whatever  it  wishes  to  believe. 

This  was  true  in  ancient  Iran,  where  the  murder  of  the  genuine 
Smerdis  was  so  little  known  to  the  people  at  large  that  the  usurper 
Gaumata  boldly  and  successfully  assumed  the  role  of  that  prince. 
It  was  not  less  true  in  the  United  States  of  the  earlier  nineteenth 
century,  whose  newspapers  for  years  displayed  in  manifold  con- 
flicting versions  the  legend  of  Theodosia  Burr.  In  January  1813 
the  lady— among  the  distinguished  women  of  her  day  and  at  that 
time  wife  of  Governor  Joseph  Alston  of  South  Carolina— went 
down  with  all  hands  in  the  schooner  Patriot  during  a  violent  storm 
off  Hatteras.  But  now  and  again  through  the  columns  of  the 
press  drifted  reports  of  her  as  queen  aboard  a  pirate  craft,  or  with 
a  band  of  lotos-eating  sea-rovers  in  some  nook  of  the  West  Indies 
or  Latin  America.  Or  she  was  identified  with  that  "unknown 
female  stranger"  who  in  1816  was  carried  from  an  ebony-black 


FOREWORD  xi 

ship  into  Gadsby's  Inn  at  Alexandria,  Virginia,  by  a  cavalier  who 
later,  having  placed  above  her  grave  a  stone  that  bore  no  name, 
vanished  as  mysteriously  as  the  two  had  come. 

This  country  has  had  a  part  in  "survival  tales,"  and  the  South 
and  Southwest  have  been  especially  congenial  soil.  Was  Quantrell 
the  outlaw  actually  a  victim  of  his  wounds?  Was  it  surely  Jesse 
James  who  was  killed  by  the  dirty  little  coward  that  shot  Mister 
Howard?  Was  William  Bonney  (better  known  as  Billy  the  Kid) 
beyond  peradventure  brought  down  at  Fort  Sumner  by  Sheriff  Pat 
Garrett? 

The  familiar  superficial  chronicle  of  the  murder  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  was,  with  minor  variations,  quickly  established  in  the 
books.  It  appeared  to  satisfy  the  general  historians,  who  for  the 
most  part  have  vaulted  lightly  over  the  whole  affair  in  some  such 
fashion  as: 

President  Lincoln  was  shot  at  Ford's  Theatre  in  Washington  on 
April  14th,  1865,  by  one  John  Wilkes  Booth,  an  obscure  and  disrepu- 
table actor  who  was  party  to  a  conspiracy  for  the  assassination  of  the 
President,  the  Vice-President,  the  Cabinet,  and  General  Grant.  Booth 
was  pursued  into  Virginia  and  was  shot  when  he  refused  to  surrender. 
Four  of  the  conspirators  were  hanged  and  four  imprisoned. 

Perhaps  there  might  be  an  allusion  to  the  "vengeance  of  the  flag," 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  that  tripped  the  murderer  so  that  he  was 
injured  and,  in  pausing  for  surgical  aid,  lost  hours  of  time  as  he 
fled.  But  at  best  it  would  be  only  sketchy  mention  of  the  event 
that,  as  by  the  sweep  of  a  knife,  marked  a  dividing  line  between 
two  eras  of  national  life— the  deed  through  which  a  civilian  at  the 
solemn  moment  of  victory  deprived  the  Northern  armies  of  their 
commander-in-chief,  rekindled  the  spent  wrath  of  war,  and  made 
peace  more  bitter  than  the  sword. 

The  government  went  its  official  way,  posting  its  spare  bulle- 
tins, giving  no  heed  to  the  quidnuncs  and  the  newspapers.  It  might 
conceivably  have  issued,  for  public  enlightenment,  something  like 
the  British  Admiralty's  "white  paper"  in  the  Kitchener  case;  but 
it  did  not.  The  whole  subject  of  Lincoln's  murder  at  once  became 
involved  in  a  tangle  of  disorder  and  error,  of  falsehood  and 
credulity,  from  which  it  has  not  yet  been  set  free. 

Writers  presumably  serious  have  informed  us    (among  many 


xii  FOREWORD 

things)  that  Lincoln  in  1861  proceeded  to  Washington  by  a 
roundabout  course,  over  a  dozen  railroads,  in  order  to  avoid 
Baltimore;  that  he  reached  the  capital  at  midnight  and  got  to 
Willard's  unrecognized;  that  Baltimore,  knowing  him  for  a  just 
and  good  man,  waited  to  receive  him  with  true  hospitality;  that 
John  Booth,  by  nature  a  killer,  was  also  a  "ham"  actor  rejected 
of  managers  and  public;  that  the  Confederate  government, 
through  its  agents  in  Canada,  found  mischief  for  John's  idle 
hands;  that  on  the  night  of  April  14th  he  was  a  member  of  the 
cast  at  Ford's  Theatre  and  shot  Lincoln  from  the  stage;  that  Benn 
Pitman's  volume  is  a  complete,  unbiased,  and  faithful  record;  that 
the  testimony  of  such  persons  as  Dunham,  Montgomery,  von 
Steinacker,  Merritt,  Mrs.  Hudspeth,  Duell,  Weichmann,  Evans, 
Norton,  and  Daniel  J.  Thomas  is  reliable  and  convincing. 

No  other  phase  of  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  has  been  treated 
so  neglectfully  and  meagerly  as  has  his  leaving  of  it,  and  even 
accredited  biographers  fail  us  here.  It  is  not  surprising  that  a 
hydra-like  "mystery"  early  began  to  take  form  and  with  the  years 
acquired  substance.  A  myth  evolved  that  for  amplitude  and  vital- 
ity has  no  equal  in  the  United  States.  Nor  is  it  a  thing  "sub- 
merged"—limited,  as  has  been  inferred,  to  uncritical  folks  of 
small  reading.  Magazine  editors  have  been  impressed  by  it; 
critics  have  done  it  reverence;  historical  scholars  have  viewed  it 
gingerly  and  with  concessions.  A  veritable  jungle-growth  of  "sur- 
vival tales"  has  arisen  and  flourished.  Like  Ney  and  Rudolf  and 
John  C.  Colt  and  the  Duke  of  Portland  (T.  C.  Druce),  John  Booth 
went  on  queerly  prowling  in  queer  spots. 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  book  to  offer,  on  the  basis  of  considerable 
independent  survey  of  evidence  (including  material  never  be- 
fore presented),  (a)  a  new  and  authentic  study  of  the  affair  of  Lin- 
coln's murder,  with  such  account  of  preceding  events  and  of  the 
setting  in  which  it  took  place  as  may  help  to  a  better  understand- 
ing of  it;  and  (b)  the  story  of  John  Booth  as  he  was,  of  what  hap- 
pened to  him  as  it  did  really  happen.  The  process  has  compelled 
the  removal,  either  explicit  or  implied,  of  much  fictional  trump- 
ery of  one  kind  or  another.  Inaccuracies  are  at  least  not  purposed. 


THE  GREAT 

AMERICAN 

MYTH 


O  darkly  inspired  who,  pushing  back  the  walls 

Of  the  theatre,  hurried  from  the  disordered  stage, 

Dragging  your  tragedy  like  a  burning  cloak 

After  you  through  the  land,  and  now  enduring  as  wage 

The  taste  of  the  thick  black  grief  that  cleaves  to  your  soul— 

Not  alone  do  you  flee  the  voice  of  God  which  beats 

Against  you  like  a  maelstrom;  following  you, 

The  secretly  guilty  slink  along  the  streets, 

Appalled  because  the  deed  they  desired  is  done. 

The  madman  must  perform  what  the  cowards  are  dreaming. 

Escape!  but  the  earth  shall  offer  no  hiding-place, 

The  winds  are  pointing  the  way,  the  birds  are  screaming 

Your  whereabouts.  If  you  would  discover  peace 

Once  more  a  moment  before  the  bloodhounds  come, 

Throw  back  your  head  and  look  upon  the  stars 

Far  and  serene  above  the  pandemonium. 

HELENE  MULLINS 


o 


ne  •  FEDERAL  CITY,  1860-1865 


IN  the  fantastically  dramatic  eighteen-sixties  there  was  an 
archaic  town  called  Washington  City.  Already  the  period  is  half- 
legendary,  and  around  the  place  have  grown  up  highly  imagina- 
tive accounts  of  contemporary  events  and  persons.  At  times  it  has 
seemed  that  the  more  extravagantly  lurid  the  version,  the  more 
likely  was  it  to  accord  with  common  prepossessions  regarding  that 
entangled  scene. 

During  the  Civil  War,  Washington,  Federal  seat  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, was  likewise  headquarters  of  the  Northern  forces  on 
land  and  sea.  It  became  in  effect  a  military  post,  ringed  with 
a  circumvallation  of  forts,  between  which  stretched  rifle-pits 
guarded  by  felled  trees  whose  branches,  trimmed  and  sharpened, 
confronted  the  enemy.  So  near  the  town  was  the  war's  opening 
battle  that  naive  Washingtonians  actually  rode  forth  in  carriages 
to  view  the  show.  Quickly  they  realized  that  this  conflict  was  to  be 
no  holiday. 

From  Washington,  Union  troops  set  out  on  their  campaigns. 
There  the  Sanitary  and  Christian  commissions  had  their  main 
offices.  Into  its  crowded  hospitals  (mostly  temporary  frame  struc- 
tures, though  even  churches  and  the  museum  of  the  Patent  Office 
were  utilized)  the  wounded  were  brought.  Thither  flocked  spies, 
bounty-jumpers,  contractors,  sutlers,  gamblers,  dealers  in  patent 
camp-furniture,  cranks,  lobbyists,  office-seekers,  tailors,  camp-fol- 
lowers, journalists,  adventurers,  "bummers,"  desperadoes,  hang- 
ers-on. Thither  went  busybody  politicians  and  wiseacres  to  in- 
struct the  Administration.  Thither  went  plain  folk  to  seek  the 
wounded  and  missing;  or  sometimes,  if  it  might  be,  to  save  the 

3 


4  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

condemned.  After  major  battles  the  place  was  sure  to  be  crowded 
with  strangers.  From  the  North  you  entered  by  way  of  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio  Railroad,  whose  station  (they  called  it  a 
"deepo")  was  on  New  Jersey  Avenue,  not  far  from  the  Capitol. 

The  Federal  City  had  departed  widely  from  Major  L'Enf ant's 
original  design.  As  for  the  disorderly  Capitol,  its  unweathered 
marble  wings  stood  out  in  contrast  with  its  freestone  central  por- 
tion; and  there  was  a  local  superstition  that  the  building  never 
would  be  finished.  Not  until  December  of  1863  was  Crawford's 
Genius  of  Freedom  (or,  if  you  prefer,  Armed  Liberty)  set  atop 
the  newly  completed  iron  dome.  On  the  second  floor,  at  the  west 
of  the  rotunda,  was  the  Congressional  Library,  then  a  modest 
affair  of  some  80,000  volumes.  Before  the  east  portico  sat  Green- 
ough's  twelve-ton  image  of  the  First  President  clad  in  a  toga.  The 
Capitol  would  appear  to  have  had  the  most  varied  democratic 
uses.  In  its  basement  was  stored  flour  from  a  Georgetown  mill, 
said  to  have  been  intended  for  the  Confederates.  Under  its  roof 
incoming  troops  were  billeted.  In  cold  weather  its  well-warmed 
corridors  were  refuge  for  idlers.  From  the  desperate  heat  of 
Washington  summers  there  was  no  such  escape. 

The  President's  House  (or  Executive  Mansion,  as  it  came  to 
be  styled)  was  considered  unhealthful.  The  suggestion  had  been 
made  that  it  be  turned  into  offices  and  the  official  residence  trans- 
ferred to  Georgetown.  Its  grounds  were  ill-kept,  and  so  late  as 
1869  it  was  termed  a  national  disgrace.  Between  it  and  the  south- 
ern end  of  the  Treasury  building  were  the  presidential  stables. 
At  its  northern  side,  in  the  center  of  a  small  garden,  stood 
d' Angers'  bronze  figure  of  Jefferson.  From  the  southern  windows 
could  be  seen  the  Washington  Monument— not  as  today  an  ob- 
ject of  shining  beauty  but  truncated  at  178  feet  (or  less  than  one- 
third  of  its  present  height),  resembling,  as  was  said  in  "The  Gilded 
Age,"  "a  factory  chimney  with  the  top  broken  off."  Frequent  con- 
temporary illustrations  of  the  monument  are  deceptive  not  only 
in  showing  the  entire  shaft  but  also  in  adding  at  the  base  a  colon- 
nade, proposed  but  luckily  abandoned,  surmounted  by  an  effigy 
of  Washington  in  a  triumphal  chariot. 

The  War  Department  was  officially  located  in  a  "musty  old 
barrack"  of  drably  painted  brick  at  the  corner  of  Pennsylvania 


FEDERAL  CITY,  1860-1865  5 

Avenue  and  Seventeenth  Street;  but  because  of  wartime  expan- 
sion various  bureaus  of  the  department  were  housed  wherever 
they  might  find  room.  Back  of  the  War  building  was  that  for  the 
Navy.  At  the  corner  of  Fifteenth  Street  and  Pennsylvania  Avenue 
the  State  Department  had  sorry  accommodations. 

Just  beyond  the  east  grounds  of  the  Capitol  was  the  Old  Cap- 
itol prison.  This  "rat-trap"  had  a  curious  history.  After  the  par- 
tial destruction  of  the  Capitol  by  the  British  in  1814,  Congress 
had  occupied  improvised  apartments  so  thoroughly  uncomfortable 
as  to  promote  the  idea  of  moving  the  seat  of  government— say  to 
what  then  was  the  West,  a  region  first  made  easily  accessible  by 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio.  Thereupon  a  company  of  property- 
owners  in  Washington  built  for  the  use  of  Congress  a  domicile 
occupied  by  it  until  1819  and  thereafter  known  as  the  "Old 
Capitol."  Converted  into  a  boarding-house,  it  was  the  home  of 
many  senators  and  representatives.  With  the  arrival  of  civil  war  it 
suffered  change  into  a  military  jail,  famed  in  wartime  annals. 
For  a  while  the  romanticized  Belle  Boyd  was  here  in  durance, 
and  so  was  the  less  romanticized  but  more  effectual  Mrs.  Rose 
Greenhow.  Adjoining  it  was  the  Carroll  prison. 

Although  the  city's  population  of  60,000  (i860)  grew  in  war- 
time, irrespective  of  the  army,  to  thrice  that  number,  and  al- 
though city  water  had  slowly  been  introduced,  drinking  water 
continued  to  be  taken  from  wells  and  springs.  There  were  but 
two  little  sewers,  whose  contents  most  annoyingly  backed  up  into 
the  cellars  and  shops  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  Along  the  northern 
edge  of  the  rubbish-strewn  Mall  ran  an  open  ditch,  an  enlarge- 
ment of  Tiber  Creek— "floating,"  says  an  eyewitness,  "dead  cats 
and  all  kinds  of  putridity  and  reeking  with  pestilential  odors." 
John  Hay  wrote  that  by  night  through  the  south  windows  of  the 
"White  pest-house"  the  "ghosts  of  twenty  thousand  drowned  cats 
come  in." 

Streets  often  ended  abruptly  or  trailed  away  into  country 
roads  that,  in  the  words  of  "Bull  Run"  Russell,  were  "literally 
nothing  but  canals  in  which  earth  and  water  were  mixed  together 
for  depths  varying  from  six  inches  to  three  feet."  In  rainy  weather 
Pennsylvania  Avenue,  "a  romping  ground  for  the  winds,"  turned 
to  mire  through  which  teamsters  belabored  long-suffering  trans- 


6  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

port  animals  and  in  which  even  light  vehicles  bogged  down  ut- 
terly. Said  the  Intelligencer  of  March  6th,  1865: 

The  attention  of  the  public  authorities  is  again  called  to  the  horrid 
condition  of  F  street,  between  the  Patent  Office  and  the  Treasury 
building,  and  in  an  especial  measure  to  that  portion  from  St.  Patrick's 
to  that  quagmire  at  Eleventh  street.  There  were  some  half  a  dozen 
coaches  shipwrecked  at  the  latter-named  point  yesterday,  and  among 
them  was  the  coach  of  one  of  the  foreign  legations.  This  coach  settled 
into  the  mud  to  the  axle,  and  after  vainly  crying  for  planks  to  be 
brought,  upon  which  an  exit  to  solid  land  could  be  effected,  one  of 
the  distinguished  occupants  was  rescued  by  a  huge  negro,  who,  wading 
leg-deep  to  the  coach,  brought  the  foreign  officer  in  full  diplomatic 
regalia  through  the  sea  of  mud  upon  his  back  to  terra  firma.  The  other 
occupant  plunged  into  the  muddy  chasm,  came  out  safe,  but  with  the 
mud  hanging  sadly  upon  his  gay  costume,  and  presenting  altogether 
"a  sorry  sight."  The  horses  were  safely  rescued,  and  the  carriage  saved 
in  a  broken  condition. 

Livery  stables  flourished  and  hitching-racks  were  everywhere, 
for  commonly  men  went  about  on  horseback  through  the  mud 
wherein  pigs  wandered  "as  freely  as  dogs."  Public  park-spots  were 
rank  with  weeds.  Sidewalks  were  of  brick.  At  night  Pennsylvania 
Avenue,  flanked  by  many  "oyster-bays,"  groggeries,  and  mean 
shops,  was,  with  its  few  gas-lamps,  the  only  lighted  way;  and  the 
rural  hand-lantern  was  still  in  use.  The  northwestern  region  was 
crossed  by  undrained  marshes  that  were  blamed  for  prevalent 
"chills-and-fever"— but  nothing  was  done  about  them.  "During 
the  autumn,  on  the  immediate  banks  of  the  Potomac,"  admitted 
a  local  guide-book,  "bilious  and  intermitting  fevers  prevail  to  a 
considerable  extent,  but  the  malarian  influences  do  not  last  long, 
and  those  who  have  become  acclimated  are  seldom  subject  to 
these  diseases."  1  From  below  the  west  side  of  the  Capitol  grounds 
reached  another  filthy  waterway,  emptying  into  the  Eastern 
Branch  of  the  Potomac. 

"As  in  1800  and  1850,  so  in  i860,"  wrote  Henry  Adams,2  "the 
same  rude  society  was  camped  in  the  same  forest,  with  the  same 
unfinished  Greek  temples  for  workrooms,  and  sloughs  for  roads." 
Which  is  quite  in  keeping  with  Tom  Moore's  epistle  to  Thomas 
Hume: 

John's  "Hand-Book"  for  i860;  pp.  81-82. 
a  "The  Education  of  Henry  Adams";  p.  99. 


FEDERAL  CITY,  1860-1865  7 

In  fancy  now,  beneath  the  twilight  gloom, 
Come,  let  me  lead  thee  o'er  this  "second  Rome!" 
Where  tribunes  rule,  where  dusky  Davi  bow, 
And  what  was  Goose-Creek  once  is  Tiber  now: — 
This  embryo  capital,  where  Fancy  sees 
Squares  in  morasses,  obelisks  in  trees.  .  .  . 

Goldwin  Smith  characterized  Civil-War  Washington  as  "gloomy 
and  miry."3  In  a  letter  of  November  29th,  1861,  Hay  described 
it  as  "this  miserable  sprawling  village  which  imagines  itself  a  city 
because  it  is  wicked,  as  a  boy  thinks  he  is  a  man  when  he  smokes 
and  swears."  4 

Though  Washington  was  filled  with  wooden  buildings  and 
nondescript  alleys,  its  fire  protection  was  decidedly  sketchy.  Often 
some  fine  old  mansion  would  be  cheek  by  jowl  with  a  frame 
shanty.  Yet  Bohn's  "Hand-Book"  thought  that  "the  broad  streets 
and  avenues  are  undoubtedly  of  great  service  in  admitting  to 
every  dwelling  a  free  circulation  of  wholesome  air";  and  the 
Intelligencer  rather  pointedly  stated  that  "in  the  city  of  New 
York  15,224  people  live  in  cellars."  Pennsylvania  Avenue's  more 
pretentious  structures  were  chiefly  on  its  northern  side.  Besides 
the  Capitol  and  the  President's  House,  the  only  really  imposing 
public  edifices  in  Washington  were  those  of  the  Interior  and  the 
Treasury.  The  simpler  architecture  of  an  earlier  day  was  giving 
place  to  a  gingerbread  ugliness,  with  ponderous  cornices,  gro- 
tesque moldings.  Lonely  upon  the  waste  of  the  Mall  rose  the  be- 
towered  and  beturreted  "Romanesque"  pile  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution,  quaintly  deemed  the  city's  handsomest  fabric. 

In  keeping  order  during  the  emergency  of  war,  the  metropolitan 
police  force  of  about  150  uniformed  officers  was  supplemented  by 
the  provost  marshal's  office  and  the  National  Detective  Bureau. 
This  division  of  authority  was  naturally  obstructive  in  many 
ways.  The  Capitol  and  its  grounds  were  in  the  care  of  special 
police,  employed  by  Congress.  A  United  States  marshal,  aided  by 
numerous  deputies,  was  in  charge  of  the  city  jail. 

Cab  fares  were  high,  the  cabs  antediluvian.  A  street  railway, 
with  a  five-cent  fare,  was  introduced  but  long  was  viewed  with 
disapproval  by  many  of  the  old  regime.  It  had  been  the  custom 

3  The  Nation,  Feb.  7,  1907. 

4  Thayer,  "The  Life  of  John  Hay";  I,  85. 


8  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

for  omnibuses  to  draw  obligingly  to  the  curb  in  answer  to  signal- 
ing hand  or  brandished  parasol;  but  these  odd  new  Yankee  con- 
traptions— "c'yar-boxes"  as  they  were  disdainfully  termed— did 
nothing  of  the  sort.  Also,  the  question  of  their  carrying  Negro 
passengers  became  for  a  time  a  source  of  local  difficulty.  An  act 
passed  in  1862  freed  slaves  in  the  District  and,  on  the  basis  of  ex- 
pert appraisal,  former  owners  received  payment— but  only  after 
having  taken  an  oath  of  loyalty.  A  letter  in  the  Intelligencer  of 
May  6th,  1863,  signed  "A  Daily  Sufferer,"  declared  that  the  street- 
railway  company  (of  which  banker  Jay  Cooke,  whose  firm  had 
offices  on  Fifteenth  Street,  opposite  the  Treasury,  had  been  a 
promoter),  although  it  was  supposed  to  restore  paving  between 
rails  and  for  two  feet  on  either  side,  had  not  done  so,  and  that 
the  resulting  condition  was  "shocking."  A  reply  on  the  7th  ob- 
jected that  "Sufferer"  was  unreasonable  and  blamed  the  trouble 
to  some  extent  on  the  "soft"  winter,  which,  "with  the  immense 
amount  of  travel  over  our  streets,"  had  "broken  pavements  every- 
where." The  writer  added  that  streets  through  which  the  rail- 
way did  not  pass  were  even  worse. 

The  directory  for  1865  listed  sixty-six  hotels— many,  no  doubt, 
in  the  boarding-house  class,  for  in  Washington  the  boarding-house 
and  its  landlady  were  characteristic  institutions;  and  plenty  of 
homes  had  "roomers."  Among  hostelries  of  the  better  kind  were 
Willard's  (Pennsylvania  Avenue,  between  Fourteenth  and  Fif- 
teenth Streets),  where  several  Presidents,  including  Lincoln,  had 
put  up;  the  Kirkwood  House  (Pennsylvania  Avenue  at  Twelfth 
Street),  abode  of  Vice-President  Johnson;  and  the  National  (Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  and  Sixth  Street),  which  had  been  favored  by 
Southerners.  The  dining  rooms  were  unadorned  halls  set  with  long 
tables.  Dancing  parties  known  as  "hops"  were  given  by  the  man- 
agements and  became  the  vogue.  Willard's  in  its  advertisements 
claimed  to  be  the  largest  hotel  in  the  United  States,  with  quar- 
ters for  1,200  guests.  The  National,  also  capacious,  was  perhaps 
the  only  hotel  ever  to  have  given  its  name  to  a  malady— the 
"National  Hotel  disease,"  supposed  to  have  had  its  origin  in  the 
inadequate  sewerage  facilities  of  the  city.  From  5  to  7:30  o'clock 
p.  m.,  the  public  rooms  of  Willard's  were  a  favorite  resort  of  news- 
gathering  correspondents  for  the  out-of-town  press.  The  Kimmel 


FEDERAL  CITY,   1860-1865  9 

House  was  the  usual  stopping-place  of  those  engaged  in  smuggling 
contraband  by  way  of  Port  Tobacco  into  the  Confederacy. 

Restaurants  and  barrooms  abounded.  The  directory  for  1865 
has  four  pages  of  them  in  its  classified  section.  Wines  and  liquors 
were  cheap— the  liquors  often  of  the  poorest  quality.  To  be 
sure,  it  was  contrary  to  regulations  to  sell  to  men  in  uniform. 
Signs  read:  NOTHING  SOLD  TO  SOLDIERS,  or  otherwise  to 
that  effect  (as,  NO  LIQUORS  SOLD  TO-followed  by  cuts 
representing  the  three  arms  of  the  service).  Yet  regulations  were 
ignored  so  long  as  the  only  penalty  was  a  few  hours'  detention 
in  a  guardhouse  or  a  few  dollars'  fine  imposed  by  a  police  justice. 
The  shabbiest  boozing-dens  clustered  around  the  governmental 
storehouses,  repair  shops,  stables,  and  corrals.  On  April  4th,  1865, 
the  day  after  Richmond's  fall,  the  Washington  correspondent  of 
the  Missouri  Republican  (St.  Louis)  wrote  to  his  paper:  "There's 
a  strange  affinity  between  patriotism  and  whiskey.  I  do  not  believe 
I  am  beyond  the  mark  when  I  state  there  were  five  thousand 
drunken  men  to  be  seen  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  yesterday."  5 

In  the  Potomac  and  the  Eastern  Branch,  between  raw  banks, 
rode,  from  1862  onward,  war  vessels  known  as  monitors— craft 
that  did  indeed  affect  the  whole  trend  of  naval  architecture  and 
the  course  of  naval  warfare  but  that  undoubtedly  were  as  little 
like  ships  as  anything  that  ever  floated.  The  Navy  Yard  works 
(around  on  the  Eastern  Branch,  at  the  foot  of  Eighth  Street,  east) 
labored  full-tilt  at  iron  plates  for  these  "cheese-boxes  on  rafts" 
or  at  the  casting  of  Dahlgren  guns,  familiarly  known  as  "soda- 
water  bottles"  and  now  almost  as  outlandish-seeming  as  "Mons 
Meg"  or  the  great  bombarde  of  Ghent.  Close  by,  from  the  foot  of 
Eleventh  Street  (east),  the  wooden  Navy  Yard  bridge  crossed  the 
Eastern  Branch  to  Uniontown.  From  Maryland  Avenue  to  the 
Virginia  shore  the  wooden  "Long  Bridge"  spanned  the  Potomac. 

In  respect  of  the  theater,  Washington  City  was  indeed  some- 

8  Quoted  by  N.  McN.  Ring  in  "The  Religious  Affiliations  of  Our  Presidential 
Assassins"  (script  in  the  Library  of  Congress:  St.  Louis;  p.  3).  (This  may  also  be 
found  in  Mid-America  for  Oct.  and  Nov.  1933.) — In  the  McLellan  Collection  is  a 
manuscript  letter  from  Acting  Ensign  H.  F.  Curtis  to  his  sister  Ann  in  which,  writing 
from  the  U.S.S.  Gamma  at  New  Bern,  N.  C,  he  says:  "You  speak  of  liquor.  I  wish 
you  could  form  an  idea  (which  is  impossible  unless  you  are  here)  of  the  amount 
used  in  both  Army  &  Navy  by  officers.  ...  I  have  not  met  12  who  did  not  drink — " 
(Apr.  18,  1865).  See  also  Russell,  "My  Diary  North  and  South";  pp.  481,  577. 


io  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

what  less  primitive  than  the  Washington  of  seventy  years  later. 
It  had  two  active  legitimate  houses  where  stock  companies  were 
regularly  maintained,  where  leading  players  of  the  day  appeared 
as  "guests,"  and  where  grand  opera  was  sporadically  performed  by 
traveling  companies.  These  were  the  rival  Grover's  (on  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  between  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Streets) 
and  Ford's  (on  Tenth  Street,  one  and  a  half  "squares"  north  of 
Pennsylvania  Avenue,  between  E  and  F).  Also  there  were  the  old 
Washington  Theatre  (at  the  corner  of  Eleventh  and  C,  near  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue),  Canterbury  Music  Hall,  Oxford  Hall,  and 
Seaton  Hall  (where  recitals  and  concerts  were  usually  given  and 
where,  too,  occasional  magicians,  mediums,  and  ventriloquists 
were  advertised).  Other  auditoriums  were  Odd  Fellows'  Hall  and 
the  concert  hall  at  Willard's  (seating  800);  and  lecturers  fre- 
quently spoke  in  one  of  the  larger  of  the  numerous  churches.  The 
hall  of  the  Patent  Office  was  the  scene  of  inaugural  balls.  Circuses 
exhibited  on  lots  at  the  foot  of  Sixth  Street  or  at  the  corner  of 
Sixth  Street  and  New  York  Avenue. 

During  the  winter  of  1861-1862  a  group  organizing  as  the 
Washington  Lecture  Association  presented  a  course  of  lectures  by 
prominent  figures  of  the  lyceum  platform.  With  the  aid  of  Owen 
Lovejoy,  Schuyler  Colfax,  and  Lincoln,  the  large  auditorium  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institution  was  obtained  over  the  protest  of 
Director  Joseph  Henry,  who  insisted  that  at  every  lecture  the 
chairman  inform  the  audience  that  the  Smithsonian  was  not  re- 
sponsible for  the  sentiments  expressed.  Accordingly,  the  Rev. 
John  Pierpont,  the  association's  president,  opened  each  lecture 
with  this  formula:  "Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  am  requested  by 
Professor  Henry  to  announce  that  the  Smithsonian  Institution  is 
not  in  any  way  responsible  for  this  course  of  lectures.  I  do  so  with 
pleasure,  and  desire  to  add  that  the  Washington  Lecture  Associa- 
tion is  in  no  way  responsible  for  the  Smithsonian  Institution." 
Mrs.  Charles  Eames,  wife  of  a  Washington  lawyer  who  often  acted 
as  counsel  for  the  Navy  and  Treasury  departments,  was  hostess  of 
a  salon  in  which  kindred  spirits  foregathered. 

Like  other  American  towns  of  the  period,  Washington  City 
had  in  its  interiors  reached  the  apogee  of  bad  taste.  It  displayed 
heavy  curtains  of  Nottingham  lace;  marble-topped  tables;  wax 


FEDERAL  CITY,  1860-1865  " 

flowers  under  bell  glass;  chairs  and  sofas  of  horrendous  design  and 
upholstered  in  slippery,  tufted  haircloth;  ingrain  or  Brussels 
carpets  adorned  with  bright  cabbage-roses.  Black  walnut  was  the 
wood  most  used  for  cabinetwork;  walls  were  covered  with  papers 
of  a  dispirited  ugliness.  The  Executive  Mansion,  in  whose  second 
story  Lincoln  had  his  office,  differed  only  in  being  on  a  somewhat 
more  elaborate  scale.  Stoddard,  one  of  the  private  secretaries, 
noted  that  during  Lincoln's  term  the  "reception"  part  had  been 
refitted  but  that  most  of  the  house  inside  had  a  worn,  untidy  look; 
the  basement  carrying  "somewhat  the  air  of  an  old  and  unsuccess- 
ful hotel." 

Against  such  background  moved  civilians  in  generally  somber 
clothes  (including  shawls  for  chill  weather),  stovepipe  hats,  high 
boots  inside  trousers— often  with  spurs,  because  men  rode  so 
much.  Light-colored  pantaloons  and  embroidered  waistcoats  were, 
however,  in  evidence.  The  women  wore  chignons,  bonnets,  frocks 
of  heavy  materials,  and  vast,  tricksy  hoops.  Everywhere  were  sol- 
diers—soldiers in  zouave  outfits;  soldiers  with  tunics  flying  to  the 
breeze;  soldiers  in  all  sorts  of  neckgear  and  girt  with  tasseled 
sashes;  soldiers  garbed,  it  seems,  very  much  as  they  pleased— reach- 
ing the  extreme,  perhaps,  in  General  Custer,  with  his  wide-awake, 
his  long  hair  falling  over  the  broad  collar  of  a  blue  flannel  shirt, 
and  a  scarlet  cravat  as  big  as  a  muffler.  The  gray  of  paroled  Con- 
federate officers  was  an  everyday  sight.  Beards  of  all  cuts  and  no 
cut,  whiskers  of  a  sweeping  luxuriance,  were  in  the  mode; 
mustaches  ran  to  the  heavy,  drooping  pattern.  A  popular  song 
was  "The  captain  with  his  whiskers  cast  a  sly  glance  at  me"— the 
accompaniment  played  on  a  square  piano.  (Stoddard  was  con- 
vinced that  "all  the  young  women  of  Washington,  and  some  that 
are  older,"  knew  "more  or  less"  how  to  play  the  piano.) 

Through  the  streets  passed  interminably  mules,  cattle,  army 
stores,  wagon  trains.  At  all  hours  might  be  heard  the  footbeats 
of  infantry  on  the  march,  the  jangling  of  cavalry  accouterments, 
the  thud  of  hooves,  the  jar  of  artillery,  the  throb  of  drums.  And 
there  were  funerals— a  general's  with  a  band  and  his  staff  in 
attendance,  and  an  escort  with  arms  reversed;  or  for  a  dozen 
privates  at  a  time,  their  massed  coffins  accompanied  by  a  corporal 
and  a  squad  of  ten  men.  "On  the  hills  around  .  .  .  were   the 


12  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

white  tents  of  soldiers,  and  field  fortifications  and  camps,  and  in 
every  direction  could  be  seen  the  brilliant  colors  of  the  national 
flag."  6 

Washington  City  had  been  of  old  divided  against  itself  and  tra- 
ditionally lacking  in  community  spirit.  With  the  onset  of  war, 
Southern  members  departed  from  Capitol  Hill;  but  Confederate 
runners  moved  discreetly  about  their  business,  Confederate  agents 
lurked.  In  the  Washington  of  a  decade  before,  young  Henry  Ad- 
ams had  noted  the  heavy  odor  of  the  catalpas  in  the  May  sunshine. 
Heavier  now  was  the  atmosphere  of  domestic  malice.  The  place 
was  a  micro-chaos  in  which  might  happen  strange  and  terrible 
things. 

"I.  N.  Arnold,  "The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln";  p.  452. 


Two 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY 


AT  Springfield  by  the  Sangamon,  on  the  night  of  November 
6th,  i860,  Candidate  Lincoln  sat  in  the  telegraph  office,  musing 
over  the  bulletins  as  the  sounder  clicked  them  in.  Unfavorable 
dispatches  from  New  York  had  depressed  him  briefly;  but  before 
long  a  turn  had  come,  and  by  twelve  o'clock  he  knew  the  Presi- 
dency was  his.  Out  in  the  streets,  wreathing  lines  of  men,  linked 
arm  to  arm,  chanted  over  and  over,  "Oh,  ain't  we  glad  we  joined 
the  Republicans!"— to  the  tune  of  "Oh,  ain't  I  glad  I  got  out 
of  the  wilderness!"  With  that  firm,  springless  gait  of  his,  but  more 
buoyantly  than  usual,  Lincoln  walked  home  to  the  frame  house 
at  the  corner  of  Eighth  and  Jackson  Streets— the  only  house  he 
ever   owned— and   called   out,    "Mary— Mary!    We   are    elected!" 

Yes,  it  was  victory;  but  because  the  Democrats  had  been  split 
between  Breckinridge  and  Douglas  it  was  a  victory  by  a  minority 
of  the  popular  vote.  Many  a  Northern  Democrat  never  forgave 
Lincoln  for  his  presumptuous  defeat  of  the  Little  Giant.  Southern 
Democrats  termed  him  a  sectional  President.  He  once  compared 
his  attitude  to  that  of  a  backwoods  surveyor  who,  as  he  hunted  for 
a  corner,  kept  a  weather-eye  open  for  prowling  Indians.  Decisively 
his  election  marked  the  cleavage  between  slave  states  and  free.  It 
set  the  free  states  at  last  in  power.  It  made  widely  vocal  the 
Southern  disdain  and  hatred  of  Lincoln  himself. 

During  the  campaign,  mutterings  had  been  heard.  In  June  the 
Hon.  John  Townsend  delivered  at  Rockville,  South  Carolina,  an 
address  on  the  provocative  topic  "The  South  Alone  Should  Gov- 
ern the  South."  In  August,  Texans  were  stirring.  One  protested: 

13 


14  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

I  believe  I  am  not  in  the  dark  when  I  say  that  if  Lincoln  is  elected, 
it  will  take  five  hundred  thousand  troops  to  inaugurate  him.  To  believe 
that  the  South  would  submit  to  it,  with  the  train  of  calamities  which 
must  of  necessity  follow,  is  to  believe  that  we  are  paltroons  [sic],  and 
destitute  of  every  sentimental  [sentiment  of?]  patriotism.  [J.W.S.,  Fort 
Worth] 

Another  asserted: 

It  has  now  become  a  settled  conviction  in  the  South  that  this  Union 
cannot  subsist  one  day  after  Abe  Lincoln  has  been  declared  President, 
if  God,  in  his  infinite  wisdom,  should  permit  him  to  live  that  long. 
.  .  .1  [Dated  at  Marshall,  August  12th] 

By  December  the  mutterings  had  swelled  to  voices  of  portent. 
Somebody  wrote  to  the  Cincinnati  Commercial  that  Lincoln 
would  be  shot  during  the  inaugural  exercises.  Anonymous  threats 
enlivened  Lincoln's  mail.  In  its  Christmas  Day  issue  the  Rich- 
mond Enquirer  (i860)  contributed  to  the  fund  of  seasonal  good 
will  the  meaningful  question: 

...  If  the  Governor  of  Maryland  [Thomas  H.  Hicks],  influenced  by 
timidity  or  actuated  by  treachery,  shall  longer  delay  to  permit  the 
people  of  that  State  to  protect  themselves,  can  there  not  be  found  men 
bold  and  brave  enough  to  unite  with  Virginians  in  seizing  the  capitol 
at  Washington  and  the  Federal  defences  within  the  two  States? 

Such  thoughts  were  in  men's  minds. 

Caleb  Cushing  had  been  sent  to  South  Carolina  as  Buchanan's 
representative,  with  the  object  of  delaying,  if  possible,  the  passage 
of  the  ordinance  of  secession.  His  mission  was  hopeless.  The  ordi- 
nance was  passed,  as  we  know,  on  December  20th— the  day  on 
which  Howell  Cobb,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  quit  the  Cabinet 
in  which  he  had  remained  too  long.  Upon  Cushing's  return  to 
Washington  it  was  said  that  Senator  Louis  T.  Wigfall  of  Texas 
(a  South  Carolinian  by  birth)  divulged  to  a  group  of  kindred 
souls  his  plan  for  Buchanan's  abduction.  While  the  President  was 
held  prisoner,  Vice-President  Breckinridge  would  take  the  execu- 
tive chair;  and,  as  Wigfall  put  it,  the  South  would  not  be  "trapped 
into  a  war."  But  properly  to  manage  the  affair,  and  to  get  the 

1  Townsend's  address  was  printed  in  pamphlet  form  at  Charleston  (i860;  pp.  64). 
(See  also  his  "The  Doom  of  Slavery  in  the  Union:  Its  Safety  Out  of  It."  Cf.  the 
Evening  Day -Book,  Sept.  8,  i860.) 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  15 

captive  expeditiously  out  of  Washington,  Wigfall  felt  he  needed 
the  aid  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  John  B.  Floyd  of  Virginia.  When 
the  scheme  was  unfolded,  Floyd  absolutely  refused  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  it.  Thus,  at  all  events,  ran  the  story  which  that 
unknown  chronicler  "Public  Man"  entered  in  his  contemporary 
journal.  Passages  from  this  journal  (kept  during  the  autumn  of 
i860  and  the  winter  of  1860-1861)  were  printed  in  the  North 
American  Review  in  1879.  "Public  Man"  was  supposed  to  have 
been  an  office-holder  in  Washington,  but  his  name  was  never 
revealed.2 

A  later  and  embellished  version  had  it  that  Buchanan  was  to 
have  been  taken  to  a  remote  farmhouse,  far  in  a  secluded  valley 
of  the  Blue  Ridge.  Then  Breckinridge,  who  had  himself  been  a 
candidate,  would  refashion  the  Cabinet,  repudiate  Lincoln's  elec- 
tion, and  forthwith  be  inaugurated.  Lincoln,  if  he  succeeded  in 
reaching  Washington,  would  be  seized  and  imprisoned.  Thus  the 
Federal  government  would  without  bloodshed  pass  to  the  South 
and  secession  would  become  unnecessary.  This  variant  (of  rather 
doubtful  authority)  was  supposed  to  have  been  traced  to  one 
Godard  Bailey,  chief  clerk  of  the  bureau  of  Indian  affairs  when 
artful  Jacob  Thompson  was  Secretary  of  the  Interior.3 

"Conspiracy,"  "abduction"— these  obviously  were  notions  that 
had  penetrated  the  familiar  gossip  of  official  circles.  On  December 
29th  Senator  William  H.  Seward  was  writing  to  Lincoln: 

A  plot  is  forming  to  seize  the  capital  on  or  before  the  4th  of  March, 
and  this,  too,  has  its  accomplices  in  the  public  councils.  I  could  tell 
you  more  particularly  than  I  dare  write,  but  you  must  not  imagine  that 
I  am  giving  you  suspicions  and  rumors.  Believe  me  I  know  what  I  write! 

In  like  vein  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Seward:  "Treason  is  all  around  and 
amongst  us;  and  plots  to  seize  the  capital  and  usurp  the  Govern- 
ment." 4  On  that  same  day  the  discredited  Floyd  at  last  resigned. 
That  companies  "strongly  tinctured  with  secessionism"  were 
drilling  in  Washington  is  the  statement  of  L.  A.  Gobright,  man- 
ager of  the  local  office  of  the  Associated  Press  and  hence  in  a  posi- 

3  See  the  Review  for  August  1879;  pp.  131-132. 
8  The  World    (New  York),  Feb.  21,  1892,  p.  13. 
4F.  W.  Seward,  "Seward  at  Washington";  p.  488. 


16  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

tion  to  know  whereof  he  spoke.  They  looked,  he  says,  "for  a 
favorable  opportunity  to  strike  a  blow  at  the  Government."  5 

Northerners  tarrying  below  the  line  were  made  aware  of  a  gen- 
eral mood  of  scornful  defiance.  For  example:  In  January  1861, 
while  on  a  steamboat  trip  from  Cairo  to  New  Orleans,  Mrs.  Jane 
M.  Johns  heard  it  confidently  said  that  Lincoln  would  never  be 
inaugurated— that  he  would  not  get  so  far  as  Washington. 
"Washington  City  will  be  ours  in  less  than  a  month.  .  .  .  When 
Washington  is  ours,  Virginia  and  Maryland,  Kentucky  and  Mis- 
souri will  fall  into  line.  Illinois  is  ready  too,  and  the  Mississippi 
valley  with  the  whole  northwest  will  be  in  the  Confederacy."  In 
New  Orleans  they  asked  whether  Lincoln  could  read,  always  went 
barefoot,  looked  like  a  baboon,  had  a  Negro  wife.6 

On  January  3rd  Lincoln  wrote  to  Seward  from  Springfield: 

I  have  been  considering  your  suggestions  as  to  my  reaching  Wash- 
ington somewhat  earlier  than  is  usual.  It  seems  to  me  the  inauguration 
is  the  most  dangerous  point  for  us.  Our  adversaries  have  us  now  clearly 
at  a  disadvantage.  On  the  second  Wednesday  of  February,  when  the 
votes  should  be  officially  counted,  if  the  two  Houses  refuse  to  meet  at 
all,  or  meet  without  a  quorum  of  each,  where  shall  we  be?  I  do  not 
think  that  this  counting  is  constitutionally  essential  to  the  election;  but 
how  are  we  to  proceed  in  absence  of  it?  7 

Late  in  the  month  he  sent  Thomas  S.  Mather,  adjutant-general 
of  Illinois,  to  Washington.  Mather  was  to  see  General  Scott,  learn 
precisely  what  steps  were  being  taken  to  guarantee  an  orderly 
inauguration,  and  discover  whether  the  General  was  "really  and 
unreservedly"  Unionist.  Though  propped  on  pillows,  the  ailing 
warrior  left  no  doubt  whatever. 

He  said  to  Mather:  "You  may  present  my  compliments  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  when  you  reach  Springfield,  and  tell  him  that  I  shall  ex- 
pect him  to  come  on  to  Washington  as  soon  as  he  is  ready.  Say  to 
him  also,  that,  when  once  here,  I  shall  consider  myself  respon- 
sible for  his  safety.  If  necessary,  I  shall  plant  cannon  at  both  ends 
of  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  if  any  of  the  Maryland  or  Virginia 
gentlemen  who  have  become  so  threatening  and  troublesome  of 

'"Recollections  of  Men  and  Things";  p.  286. 

""Personal  Recollections";  pp.  86-87,  90. 

*  Nicolay  and  Hay,  "Abraham  Lincoln:  Complete  Works";  vol.  i,  p.  663. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  17 

late,  show  their  heads,  or  even  venture  to  raise  a  finger,  I  shall 
blow  them  to  Hell!"  8 

The  House  of  Representatives  appointed  on  January  9th  the 
Select  Committee  of  Five,  which  heard  evidence  regarding  "an 
alleged  hostile  organization  against  the  Government  within  the 
District  of  Columbia."  The  testimony  given  did  not  in  the  opinion 
of  the  committee  disclose  the  existence  at  that  time  of  a  definite 
organized  plot  to  seize  the  capital.  On  February  14th  the  commit- 
tee's report  was  laid  upon  the  table.  Referring  to  the  time  as  one 
when  "the  very  air"  was  "filled  with  rumors"  and  when  individ- 
uals were  given  to  "the  most  extravagant  expressions  of  fears  and 
threats,"  it  revealed  a  number  of  significant  things. 

John  B.  Blake,  who,  as  commissioner  of  public  buildings  and 
grounds,  was  head  of  the  Capitol  police,  said  he  had  examined  a 
suspicious  character  named  Columbus  Edelin,  alias  Lum  Cooper. 
Edelin,  it  was  alleged,  had  offered  to  shoot  Lincoln  if  nobody  else 
would.  When  Blake  had  questioned  Edelin  about  this,  Edelin  had 
replied,  rather  evasively,  that  no  man  dared  accuse  him  to  his 
face. 

Mayor  James  G.  Berret  of  Washington  spoke  of  certain  loosely 
formed  organizations  that  drilled  regularly  in  the  city.  One  of 
these,  the  National  Volunteers,  had  before  the  Presidential  elec- 
tion been  a  political  club.  The  Volunteers  had  adopted  a  resolu- 
tion by  which  they  were  pledged  to  go  with  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia in  case  these  seceded.  Col.  Charles  P.  Stone  said  that  S.  P. 
Hanscom,  a  newspaperman  in  Washington,  told  him  that  the 
Volunteers  had  an  enrollment  of  some  1,500.  Stone,  who  was  on 
Scott's  staff,  was  colonel  and  inspector-general  of  the  militia  of 
the  District. 

Governor  Thomas  H.  Hicks  of  Maryland  testified  that  Judge 
Handy  of  Mississippi  had  assured  him  Lincoln  would  never  be  in- 
ducted into  office.  Southerners  did  not  intend,  according  to  the 
Judge,  that  Lincoln  should  "have  dominion"  over  them.  Asked 
whether  he  understood  this  to  involve  force  or  secession,  Hicks 
replied: 

8  C.  W.  Elliott,  "Winfield  Scott";  p.  688.  Jesse  Weik,  "How  Lincoln  Was  Convinced 
of  General  Scott's  Loyalty,"  in  Century  Magazine,  Feb.  1911;  pp.  593-594.  Scott  had 
told  L.  E.  Chittenden,  "While  I  command  the  army,  there  will  be  no  revolution  in 
the  city  of  Washington." 


18  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

He  [Handy]  did  not  explain.  I  was  left  to  inference  altogether;  but 
judging  by  all  that  I  knew,  I  believed  it  could  not  be  prevented  other- 
wise than  by  violence. 

For  his  own  part,  Hicks  said,  he  was  firmly  of  belief  that  an  effort 
had  actually  at  one  time  been  made  to  form  an  organization  hav- 
ing for  its  object  an  attack  on  the  Federal  government  and  on 
Federal  property  in  the  District. 

John  H.  Goddard,  chief  of  police,  made  the  rather  surprising 
admission  that  he  had  not  one  detective  officer  on  his  force.  Among 
other  witnesses  was  Cipriano  Ferrandini  of  Baltimore,  who  had 
been  summoned  as  one  acquainted  with  under-cover  activities 
there.9 

On  February  4th  (by  which  date  six  more  states  had  followed 
South  Carolina  into  the  new  Confederacy)  the  Peace  Convention 
assembled  in  Washington.  At  Virginia's  invitation,  twenty-one 
states— seven  slave  and  fourteen  free— had  sent  delegates.  Ex-Presi- 
dent John  Tyler  was  chosen  to  the  chair.  In  an  effort  to  pro- 
tect ''Southern  rights,"  the  convention  recommended  an  article 
of  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  but  this  did  not  meet  with  sup- 
port in  Congress,  nor  did  it  go  far  enough  to  please  the  South. 
Furthermore,  with  Virginia  a  condition  of  any  agreement  had 
been  that  the  right  of  secession  be  fully  conceded. 

The  House  on  February  11th  adopted  resolutions  requesting 
President  Buchanan  to  communicate  his  reasons  for  assembling 
in  Washington  a  large  body  of  troops.  Had  he  any  information  of 
"a  conspiracy  upon  the  part  of  any  portion  of  the  citizens  of  this 
country"  to  seize  the  capital  and  prevent  Lincoln's  due  inaugura- 
tion? The  President  referred  these  matters  to  Joseph  Holt,  Ken- 
tuckian  and  Democrat  but  stanchly  Unionist,  who,  having  served 
as  Postmaster-General  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  had  on  Floyd's  de- 
parture taken  over  the  portfolio  of  War. 

Holt  in  his  reply  of  the  18th  said  that  on  the  basis  of  informa- 
tion "from  many  parts  of  the  country"  and  "of  a  most  conclusive 
character"  he  believed  in  the  existence  of  an  organization  that  pur- 
posed to  seize  Washington.  He  aptly  pointed  out  that  for  three 
months  open  revolution  had  in  fact  been  in  progress  in  the  South. 

9  Reports  of  Committees  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  36th  Cong.,  2nd  sess., 
vol.  ii,  rept.  79;  pp.  3-19,  125,  132-139,  166-178. 


From  a  photograph  by  Matthew  Brady  U.  S.  Signal  Corps 

THE  CAPITOL  AT  WASHINGTON  AS  IT  LOOKED  IN  THE  EARLY  DAYS 

OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

This  view  from  the  west  shows  the  uncompleted  dome,  the  "open  ditch"  of  Tiber 
Creek,  and  (in  the  middle  distance)  the  "National  Greenhouses" 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  19 

The  President  in  a  special  message  to  the  House  (March  1st)  sub- 
mitted that,  exclusive  of  marines  properly  stationed  at  the  Navy 
Yard,  the  troops  numbered  in  grand  total  but  653!  This  small 
force  was  to  "act  as  a  posse  comitatus,  in  strict  subordination  to  the 
civil  authority,  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  peace  and  order  in 
the  city  of  Washington,  should  this  be  necessary  before  or  at  the 
period  of  the  inauguration  of  the  President-elect." 

He  insisted  that  not  only  the  peace  and  order  of  the  city  and 
the  security  of  the  inauguration  but  also  the  safety  of  Federal  prop- 
erty and  of  government  archives  demanded  that  he  adopt  "pre- 
cautionary measures."  Unfavorable  though  its  location  might  be  in 
many  respects,  Washington  had  to  be  maintained  as  the  seat  of 
government.  If  so  maintained,  it  must  be  defended  against  cap- 
ture, and  the  government  must  be  protected  from  affront  or  harm. 

When  the  electoral  votes  were  counted  on  February  13th,  Scott, 
as  good  as  his  word,  had  soldiers  on  guard  at  every  entrance  to  the 
Capitol.  Besides  representatives  and  senators,  no  one  was  ad- 
mitted but  those  holding  tickets  signed  by  the  Speaker  or  the  Vice- 
President.  In  front  of  the  Old  Capitol  two  battalions  of  artillery 
were  stationed.  A  noisy  mob  had  been  streaming  in  from  Virginia 
and  Maryland  to  fraternize  with  the  local  rabble  and  await  events; 
but  Breckinridge,  as  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate,  duly  an- 
nounced his  rival's  election,  and  the  day  ended  without  a  clash. 

Washington's  Birthday  was  celebrated  in  Washington's  own 
Federal  City  far  less  impressively  and  spontaneously  than  had  been 
usual.  The  militia  paraded  in  the  morning;  the  regulars  in  the 
afternoon,  and  not  in  mass  formation  but  as  detached  units.  Even 
so,  John  Tyler  formally  rebuked  Buchanan  because  United  States 
troops  had  been  allowed  to  march  at  all. 

In  faraway  Springfield,  February  1 1  th  dawned  gloomily,  with  a 
cold  rain  falling.  At  five  minutes  before  eight  Abraham  Lincoln 
stepped  from  the  depot  of  the  Great  Western  Railway  to  his  spe- 
cial train  of  a  baggage  car  and  a  coach.  On  the  rear  platform  of  the 
coach  he  removed  his  tall  hat  and  for  an  appreciable  time  stood 
silent.  Among  the  thousand  neighbors  there  gathered  to  bid  him 
farewell,  every  man  waited  with  bared  head. 

Then  in  the  manner  distinctive  of  him  at  his  best— a  manner,  as 


20  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Lord  Charnwood  has  well  said,  like  that  of  great  drama— Lincoln 
began  to  speak.  "No  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can  appreciate  my 
feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting."  The  words  moved  in  a  somber 
cadence.  .  .  .  "I  now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether  ever  I 
may  return,  with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that  which  rested 
upon  Washington.  .  .  ." 

His  route  lay  through  Indianapolis,  Cincinnati,  Columbus, 
Pittsburgh,  Cleveland,  Buffalo.  Under  date  of  February  ist,  Wash- 
ington's Mayor  Berret,  troubled  by  unverified  reports,  had  written 
to  John  W.  Garrett,  president  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Rail- 
road: 

I  learn  that  the  President  Elect  until  very  recently  contemplated 
passing  over  your  road  from  Wheeling  to  this  city,  and  that  owing  to 
rumored  intentions  on  the  part  of  citizens  of  Maryland  and  Virginia 
to  interfere  with  his  travel  to  our  Capital,  you  were  induced  to  make 
diligent  inquiry  as  to  the  truth  of  these  threats.  If  correctly  informed, 
will  you  do  me  the  favor  to  state  the  result  of  your  inquiries  touching 
this  matter? 

In  a  toplofty  screed  that  reads  like  puffery  from  the  road's  ad- 
vertising department,  Garrett  had  replied  that  there  was  not  and 
never  had  been  the  least  foundation  for  any  of  the  rumors  to 
which  Berret  referred. 

They  are  the  simple  inventions  of  those  who  are  agents  in  the  West 
for  other  lines,  and  are  set  on  foot  more  with  a  hope  of  interfering 
with  the  trade  and  travel  on  the  shortest  route  to  the  seaboard  than 
with  any  desire  to  promote  the  safety  and  comfort  of  the  President 
elect. . . . 

Our  road  is  regarded,  both  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  as  a  monu- 
ment of  the  common  enterprise  of  their  people  and  as  the  means  of  a 
common  prosperity.  This  feeling  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  protect  the 
travel  and  freight  of  the  road  from  all  annoyance.  I  can  only  regret  that 
the  purpose  of  the  President  elect  to  travel  by  another  route  should 
give  countenance  to  stories  which  are  in  every  respect  unfounded. 

You  may  be  assured  that  whatever  is  done  in  Maryland,  in  view  of 
the  unhappy  crisis  existing  in  the  country,  will  be  done  with  a  steady 
regard  to  all  the  rights  of  persons  and  property  of  all  sections  of  the 
land. 

Thus  the  dogmatic  Garrett,  not  neglectful  of  the  sweet  uses  of 
publicity  but  decidedly  without  prophetic  gift. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  21 

Berret  furnished  the  correspondence  to  Washington's  National 
Intelligencer,  which  tartly  commented  that  public  hospitalities 
had  been  tendered  Lincoln  by  many  towns  not  on  the  line  of  the 
B.  &  O.,  and  that  there  was  nothing  to  show  he  ever  had  designed 
to  go  by  Garrett's  road.  It  added  that  Buchanan  would  have  been 
"derelict  in  public  duty"  if  he  had  not  taken  "precautionary  meas- 
ures" against  possible  disorder  on  or  before  March  4th.  "Very  idle 
seemed  the  intimation  conveyed  to  Mr.  Secretary  Floyd  in  an 
anonymous  letter  foreshadowing  the  descent  of  John  Brown  on 
Harper's  Ferry,  but  subsequent  events  proved  that  a  small  force  at 
that  point  would  have  been  more  effective  to  preserve  the  public 
property  than  any  letter  signed  by  the  President  of  that  road."  10 

The  traveling  party  included  Mrs.  Lincoln;  the  three  boys- 
Willie,  Tad  (christened  Thomas,  nicknamed  Tadpole),  and  Rob- 
ert; John  G.  Nicolay,  Lincoln's  secretary,  and  Nicolay's  assistant, 
John  Hay;  Judge  David  Davis,  one  of  Lincoln's  campaign 
managers;  Capt.  John  Pope  and  Maj.  David  Hunter;  the  pic- 
turesque Ephraim  E.  Ellsworth,  who  had  read  law  in  Lincoln's 
office  and  for  whom  Lincoln  was  soon  to  mourn;  the  Hon.  Nor- 
man B.  Judd,  close  personal  friend  and  trusted  adviser;  Col.  Ed- 
win V.  Sumner,  a  testy  veteran  of  the  Mexican  War;  and  that 
prairie  giant  Ward  H.  Lamon,  a  partner  of  Lincoln's  and  by  him- 
self regarded  as  his  chief's  particular  escort,  bodyguard,  and  fidus 
Achates. 

Stories  got  about  of  an  attempt  to  wreck  the  train  between 
Springfield  and  Indianapolis,  of  a  hand  grenade  discovered  in  a 
carpetbag.  But  Lamon  records  that  none  on  board  ever  heard  of 
these  "murderous  doings."  Neither  Lamon  nor  anyone  else  of  the 
party  then  knew  that  Judd  had  received  at  Cincinnati  a  letter  from 
Baltimore— a  letter  that  made  upon  him  a  deep  impression.11 

In  the  state  house  at  Columbus,  Lincoln  and  his  suite  were 
nearly  crushed.  As  the  party  left  Pittsburg  the  "solid  mass"  of 
spectators  was  "almost  impenetrable."  Matters  at  Buffalo  were 
worse— much  worse.  There  a  welcoming  crowd  of  some  ten  thou- 
sand had  gathered  at  the  station,  and  so  inadequate  were  police 
arrangements  that,  when  the  party  detrained,  the  wildest  confu- 

10  Feb.  6    (p.  3)  and  7    (p.  3). 

"Lamon's  "Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln";  p.  507. 


22  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

sion  ensued.  In  getting  to  the  carriages,  Major  Hunter  had  a  shoul- 
der dislocated.  Only  through  the  efforts  of  those  immediately 
around  him  did  Lincoln  himself  escape  injury.  These  experiences 
were  object  lessons  as  to  the  tragic  helplessness  of  a  few  individuals 
when  hustled  in  this  fashion.  At  Buffalo  a  second  letter  from  Balti- 
more was  delivered  to  Judd,  who  still  kept  his  own  counsel.12 

From  Buffalo  to  Albany  it  was  a  triumphal  jaunt.  There  were 
bands;  dignitaries  with  ribbon  badges;  more  bands;  torchlight  pro- 
cessions; a  live  eagle.  The  run  of  thirty-seven  miles  from  Buffalo 
to  Batavia  was  scheduled  at  thirty  minutes— a  display  of  exuber- 
ance that  must  have  given  the  party  a  good  shaking.  After  leaving 
Utica,  it  was  observed  that  the  "Illinois  prodigy"  had  donned  a 
new  coat  and  hat.  As  the  train  entered  Schenectady  a  cannon  was 
fired  and  in  one  car  several  window  panes  were  broken. 

In  the  evening  of  Monday,  February  18,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 
received  at  Albany's  Delavan  House.  That  very  night  at  the  little 
Gayety  Theatre  on  Green  Street  a  young  actor— astonishingly 
young  for  stardom— was  opening  the  second  week  of  his  first  en- 
gagement in  the  city.  He  had  put  up  at  Stanwix  Hall,  where  he 
had  been  so  outspoken  in  his  extreme  secessionist  views  that  the 
Gayety's  management  was  annoyed. 

"Is  not  this  a  Democratic  city?"  he  asked  Treasurer  Cuyler. 

"Democratic,  yes,"  Cuyler  answered.  "But  disunion— no!"  13 

It  is  unlikely  that  Lincoln  and  he  set  eyes  upon  each  other  at 
this  time.  The  day  was  to  come  when  their  paths  would  cross— in 
that  strange  maelstrom  of  Washington.  Of  Lincoln  the  Albany 
Atlas  and  Argus  (Democratic)  remarked  editorially: 

He  does  not  look  as  if  he  had  the  bodily  vigor  to  stand  the  pressure 
upon  him.  He  evidently  has  not  the  superiority  of  nature  which  com- 
pels respect  and  commands  isolation,  even  amid  crowds.  Rude  hands 
jostled  him  and  his  underlings  commanded  him;  and  all  about  him  the 
struggle  was  who  was  to  control  him,  no  one  feeling  too  low  for  the 
task!  1* 

At  Troy  the  party  changed  from  the  Northern  Railroad  to  the 

"New  York  Times,  Feb.  16,  18;  Evening  Post  (New  York),  Feb.  18;  New  York 
Daily  News,  Feb.   18. 

13  H.  B.  Phelps,  "Players  of  a  Century.  A  Record  of  the  Albany  Stage";  pp.  324 
et  seq. 

14  Feb.  20;  p.  2. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  23 

Hudson  River  line.  Outwardly  the  President's  car,  "one  of  the 
handsomest,  perhaps,  ever  run  in  this  country,"  was  trimmed  with 
bunting  and  national  flags,  and  its  interior  was  draped  in  blue  be- 
spangled with  silver  stars.  The  wood-burning  locomotive  "Union" 
(like  steamboats,  American  locomotives  in  those  days  had  their 
names)  was  also  generously  bedecked.  Thus  in  splendor  Lincoln 
drew  down  to  New  York,  where,  not  quite  a  year  before,  he  had 
won  his  audience  in  Cooper  Union.15  Long  afterward,  Dr.  Theo- 
dore Cuyler  told  of  seeing  him  as  he  stood  in  the  barouche  that 
took  him  slowly  down  Broadway  to  the  Astor  House— "the  most 
august  and  majestic  figure  that  my  eyes  have  ever  beheld."  To 
Cuyler,  thinking  back,  he  had  "a  solemn,  faraway  look,  as  if  he 
discerned  the  toils  and  trials  that  awaited  him."  "There  was  very 
little  cheering  as  Mr.  Lincoln  passed,"  wrote  George  William 
Curtis,  "and  he  looked  at  the  people  with  a  weary,  melancholy  air, 
as  if  he  felt  already  the  heavy  burden  of  his  duty."  16 

Mayor  Fernando  Wood  in  a  homily  of  greeting  at  the  City  Hall 
struck  no  highly  exalted  note.  "All  her  [New  York's]  material  in- 
terests," he  informed  his  guest,  "are  paralyzed.  Her  commercial 
greatness  is  endangered.  .  .  .  We  fear  that  if  the  Union  dies,  the 
present  supremacy  of  New  York  may  perish  with  it."  He  hoped  the 
new  President  would  prove  equal  to  the  crisis,  but  manifestly  was 
none  too  sanguine. 

Phineas  Barnum,  whose  American  Museum  was  at  Broadway 
and  Ann  Street,  diagonally  across  from  the  Astor  House,  an- 
nounced on  the  20th: 

PRESIDENT   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   has   informed 

Mr.  Barnum  that  he  will  positively 

VISIT  THE  MUSEUM  THIS  DAY. 

Those  who  would  see  him  should  come  early. 

Never,  perhaps,  in  all  his  adventurous  career,  did  the  great  show- 
man surpass  the  audacity  of  this  touch.  .  .  .  Though  the  Presi- 
dent-elect was  unable  to  appear  with  the  other  exhibits,  Robert 

15  Henry  C.  Bowen,  publisher  of  the  Independent,  thought  that  "More  zealous 
Republicans  were  probably  made  within  twenty-four  hours  after  the  delivery  of 
that  speech  than  existed  before  in  the  whole  city." 

"Cuyler's  "Recollections  of  a  Long  Life";  p.  142.  Curtis*  letter  to  Prof.  R.  R. 
Wright    (first  published  in  the  Independent  of  Apr.  4,  1895). 


24  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

dropped  in  during  the  morning,  Mrs.  Lincoln  went,  and  the  two 
juvenile  Lincolns  sat  with  Barnum  in  his  private  box  in  the  Lec- 
ture Room  to  view  that  thrilling  novelty  "The  Woman  in  White." 

In  the  evening  there  was  a  performance  of  grand  opera  at  the 
Academy  of  Music.  Signor  Muzio,  impresario  and  conductor,  ad- 
vertised a  "Grand  Gala  Night,"  promising  enthusiastically  that 
the  building  would  be  illuminated  "as  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  Ball."  Lincoln  and  those  with  him  (Mrs.  Lincoln 
was  presiding  at  an  Astor  House  reception)  occupied  a  roomy 
proscenium  box  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  house.  The  Misses 
Phillips  and  Hinckley  sang  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner,"  a  large 
flag  descended  from  the  flies,  Lincoln  bowed  and  "with  evident 
satisfaction"  gestured  toward  the  colors.  The  piece  was  Verdi's 
new  opus  "Un  Ballo  in  Maschera,"  with  Brignoli  in  the  cast.  The 
libretto  dealt  with  the  murder  of  a  ruler— to  be  sure,  an  admitted 
villain. 

The  younger  Lincolns,  accompanied  by  a  nurse  and  a  police 
officer,  went  to  Laura  Keene's  Theatre.  There  the  attractions  were 
"Seven  Sisters,"  with  elaborate  scenic  effects,  and  "Uncle  Sam's 
Magic  Lantern,"  a  series  of  historical  tableaux.  Miss  Keene  was  a 
gifted  woman,  known  not  only  as  an  uncommonly  intelligent 
actress  but  also  as  manager  and  playwright.  In  1858  she  had  pro- 
duced in  New  York  with  outstanding  success  Tom  Taylor's  "Our 
American  Cousin,"  in  which  Jefferson  had  appeared  as  Asa 
Trenchard  and  E.  A.  Sothern  made  a  hit  as  Lord  Dundreary. 

Meanwhile,  Norman  Judd  had  been  attending  to  confidential 
business.  Not  long  after  the  party  arrived  at  the  Astor  House,  he 
learned  that  a  lady  wished  to  see  him.  She  presented  a  note  of  in- 
troduction from  Allan  Pinkerton,  founder  and  principal  of 
Pinkerton's  National  Detective  Agency,  and  she  proved  to  be  Mrs. 
Kate  Warne,  superintendent  of  Pinkerton's  women  operatives. 
Pinkerton  had  written  the  two  letters  from  Baltimore  that  Judd 
had  received  en  route,  and  Mrs.  Warne  had  been  sent  to  arrange 
an  interview  between  the  men.  Judd  told  her  he  would  accompany 
Lincoln  from  the  Philadelphia  station  to  the  Continental  Hotel; 
and  it  was  settled  that  Pinkerton  would  then  specify  a  meeting 
place. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  21st,  in  a  special  ferryboat— with, 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  25 

of  course,  the  inescapable  band— the  party  crossed  to  Jersey  City. 
Thence  it  went  by  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  to  Newark,  where 
there  was  a  parade  of  a  mile  along  Broad  Street  from  the  upper  sta- 
tion to  the  lower;  then  by  way  of  New  Brunswick  and  Princeton  to 
Trenton,  where  Lincoln  addressed  both  senate  and  assembly  and 
a  banquet  was  held  in  the  Trenton  House;  and  on  to  Philadelphia. 
As  Lincoln  was  riding  toward  the  Continental  Hotel,  where  the 
Prince  of  Wales  suite  had  been  reserved  for  him,  a  young  man  ran 
to  the  side  of  the  carriage  and  gave  Judd  a  bit  of  paper  on  which 
was: 

St.  Louis  Hotel.  Ask  for  J.  H.  Hutchinson. 

Nearly  upsetting  two  officers,  George  Burns  of  the  American  Tele- 
graph Company  had  without  difficulty  got  by  the  police  lines,  but 
it  happened  that  his  errand  was  peaceful. 

In  "Hutchinson's"  room  Judd  found  Allan  Pinkerton  and  Sam- 
uel M.  Felton,  president  of  the  Philadelphia,  Wilmington  and 
Baltimore  Railroad— the  only  direct  route  from  the  North  to  Bal- 
timore. For  over  an  hour  the  three  consulted,  then  Judd  proposed 
that  Pinkerton  and  he  have  a  talk  with  Lincoln.  At  the  Conti- 
nental a  reception  was  in  full  swing,  and  lobby  and  stairways  were 
jammed.  Pinkerton  and  Judd  went  by  the  servants'  entrance  to 
Judd's  room  on  the  second  floor  and  Lincoln  was  summoned  from 
his  interminable  handshaking.  He  came,  forcing  his  way  along  the 
corridor,  and  the  door  was  shut. 

It  was  an  incredulous  Lincoln— incredulous  but  not  alarmed— 
who  heeded  and  questioned.  The  story  unfolded  to  him  was  one 
that  by  some  writers  has  been  slightingly  dismissed  as  implausible 
if  not  preposterous.  It  led  to  an  episode  of  definite  significance  in 
Lincoln's  life— bound  up  in  many  ways  with  Lincoln's  mortal  fate; 
but  both  story  and  episode  have  been  so  garbled  and  belied  as  to 
form  a  kind  of  prologue  to  the  Great  American  Myth. 

According  to  the  published  schedule,  Lincoln  next  day  (Wash- 
ington's Birthday)  was  to  raise  a  new  flag  over  Independence  Hall 
at  six  in  the  morning  (urban  Americans  rose  earlier  then)— a  flag 
with  thirty-four  stars,  the  latest  being  for  Kansas.  He  would  then 
go  by  the  Pennsylvania  Central  to  Harrisburg,  where  he  would 


26  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

address  the  legislature.  The  day  following  (Saturday),  he  was  to 
travel  by  special  train  over  the  Northern  Central  from  Harrisburg 
to  Baltimore,  reaching  Baltimore  at  about  one  in  the  afternoon. 
From  the  Calvert  depot,  at  the  northeast  corner  of  Calvert  and 
Franklin  Streets,  he  was  to  ride  with  Mayor  Brown  in  an  open 
carriage  to  the  Eutaw  House,  and  after  dinner  there  he  would 
leave  for  Washington  at  three  by  special  train  from  the  Camden 
Street  station  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio.17  Pinkerton  and  Judd 
were  of  one  mind:  this  itinerary  must  now  be  revised.  Lincoln's 
own  account  of  the  discussion  is  forthright  and  circumstantial. 

"Pinkerton,"  he  said,  "informed  me  that  a  plan  had  been  laid 
for  my  assassination,  the  exact  time  when  I  expected  to  go  through 
Baltimore  being  publicly  known.  He  was  well  informed  as  to  the 
plan,  but  did  not  know  that  the  conspirators  would  have  pluck 
enough  to  execute  it.  He  urged  me  to  go  right  through  with  him 
to  Washington  that  night.  I  didn't  like  that.  I  had  made  engage- 
ments to  visit  Harrisburg,  and  go  from  there  to  Baltimore,  and  I 
resolved  to  do  so.  I  could  not  believe  that  there  was  a  plot  to  mur- 
der me.  I  made  arrangements,  however,  with  Mr.  Judd  for  my  re- 
turn to  Philadelphia  the  next  night,  if  I  should  be  convinced  that 
there  was  danger  in  going  through  Baltimore.  I  told  him  that  if  I 
should  meet  at  Harrisburg,  as  I  had  at  other  places,  a  delegation 
to  go  with  me  to  the  next  place  (then  Baltimore),  I  should  feel 
safe,  and  go  on."  18 

Judd  says  he  told  Lincoln:  "If  you  follow  the  course  suggested 
—of  proceeding  to  Washington  to-night— you  will  necessarily  be 
subjected  to  the  scoffs  and  sneers  of  your  enemies  and  the  disap- 
proval of  your  friends,  who  cannot  be  made  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  so  desperate  a  plot."  Lincoln  answered  resignedly  that 
he  "could  stand  anything  that  was  necessary,"  but  said  it  was  im- 
possible for  him  to  go  that  night. 

In  the  crowd  that  milled  about  the  halls  and  parlors  he  en- 
countered Frederick  Seward.  "We  went  together  to  my  room," 
related  Lincoln,  "when  he  told  me  that  he  had  been  sent,  at  the 
instance  of  his  father  and  General  Scott,  to  inform  me  that  their 

"  Between  Camden,  Howard,  Lee,  and  Eutaw  Streets. 

18  B.  J.  Lossing,  "The  Pictorial  Field  Book  of  the  Civil  War";  vol.  i,  pp.  279-280. 
Lincoln  gave  the  account  verbally  to  Lossing  at  the  White  House  in  December 
1864,  and  it  is  "substantially  in  his  own  words." 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  27 

detectives  in  Baltimore  had  discovered  a  plot  there  to  assassinate 
me.  They  knew  nothing  of  Mr.  Pinkerton's  movements.  I  now 
believed  such  a  plot  to  be  in  existence." 

Lincoln's  brief  speech  at  the  morrow's  ceremony  held  in  its  end- 
ing an  allusion  to  all  this.  Often,  he  said,  he  had  asked  himself 
what  it  was  that  from  the  first  had  kept  the  young  Confederation 
together.  He  had  found  the  answer  in  "that  sentiment  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  which  gave  liberty,  not  alone  to  the 
people  of  this  country,  but,  I  hope,  to  the  world  for  all  future  time. 
[Great  applause.]  It  was  that  which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time 
the  weight  would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men."  He  con- 
tinued: 

Now,  my  friends,  can  this  country  be  saved  upon  that  basis?  If  it  can, 
I  will  consider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  men  in  the  world — if  I  can 
help  to  save  it.  .  .  .  But  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving 
up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on 
this  spot  than  surrender  it.  [Applause.] 

The  audience  filling  Chestnut  Street  clapped  hands  but  could  not 
know  what  prompted  such  expression.  Thenceforward,  with  other 
visions  that  crossed  the  brooding  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  rose 
at  times  the  vision  of  sudden  death. 

At  nine-thirty  he  left  for  Harrisburg.  On  the  way,  Judd  un- 
folded to  him  alone  the  plan  determined  on,  adding  that  as  a 
matter  of  courtesy  the  other  members  of  the  party  should  later  be 
conferred  with  in  so  serious  a  case.  Lincoln  said,  "I  reckon  they'll 
laugh  at  us,  Judd."  Harrisburg  was  reached  at  two,  and  Lincoln 
spoke  from  the  balcony  of  the  Jones  House  to  a  crowd  of  five  thou- 
sand. (Next  day's  New  York  Herald  remarked,  "No  terms  are  too 
severe  to  characterize  the  conduct  of  the  crowd  about  the  hotel 
and  the  arrangements  there.")  Then  he  addressed  the  legislature, 
and  a  reception  was  held  at  the  state  house,  and  after  the  reception 
a  conclave  went  into  session  at  the  hotel. 

Judd  stated  the  matter  and  lively  argument  ensued.  Judge 
Davis,  a  jurist  of  parts  (he  was  later  an  associate  justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court),  after  putting  some  sharp  queries  to  Judd,  turned 
to  Lincoln  and  asked,  "Well,  Mr.  Lincoln,  what  is  your  judg- 
ment?" 

Lincoln  said,  "The  appearance  of  Mr.  Frederick  Seward,  with 


28  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

warning  from  another  source,  confirms  my  belief  in  Mr.  Pinker- 
ton's  statement.  ...  I  am  disposed  to  carry  out  Judd's  plan."  He 
was  "very  calm,  and  neither  in  his  conversation  or  manner  ex- 
hibited alarm  or  fear." 

"It  is  against  my  judgment,"  interjected  Colonel  Sumner,  "but 
I  have  undertaken  to  go  to  Washington  with  Mr.  Lincoln  and  I 
shall  do  it."  The  group  adjourned  to  dinner.19 

At  about  six  o'clock  Lincoln  was  called  from  the  dining  table. 
He  went  to  his  room  and  presently  came  down  wearing  an  over- 
coat into  a  pocket  of  which  he  had  stuck  a  soft  felt  hat.  The  hat  had 
been  given  to  him  in  New  York  and  for  night  travel  would  cer- 
tainly be  more  comfortable  than  would  a  tall,  inflexible  beaver. 
Over  one  arm  he  carried  a  shawl  such  as  he  had  worn  in  Spring- 
field when  he  went  to  market  of  a  winter's  morning,  basket  in 
hand;  such  as  then  and  afterward  was  frequently  worn  by  men  in 
cold  or  wet.  Preceded  by  the  burly  Lamon,  he  walked  arm-in-arm 
with  Governor  Curtin  out  of  a  side  entrance  and  entered  a  waiting 
carriage.  Close  behind  was  Colonel  Sumner,  and  Judd  tapped  him 
on  the  shoulder.  Sumner  turned— and  away  went  the  carriage 
down  Second  Street  as  if  to  the  Governor's  mansion,  on  the  north 
side  of  Second  just  south  of  Chestnut.  The  Colonel  was  furious, 
but  it  had  been  thought  best  that  Lamon  should  be  Lincoln's  only 
escort. 

Past  the  Governor's  mansion  the  carriage  moved  on  to  where 
the  Pennsylvania  Central  crossed  Second  Street.  There  in  the  dusk 
an  engine  with  one  car  stood  ready,  but  the  oil-lamps  in  the  car 
were  not  lighted.  Immediately  the  signal  was  given  for  the  run  to 
West  Philadelphia.  The  passengers,  besides  Lincoln  and  Lamon, 
were  Enoch  Lewis,  the  road's  general  superintendent;  G.  C.  Fran- 
ciscus,  division  superintendent;  T.  E.  Garrett,  general  baggage 
agent;  and  John  Pitcairn,  Jr.,  telegraph  operator,  who  had  with 
him  an  instrument,  so  that  he  could  tap  the  wires  if  that  should  be 
necessary. 

They  rode  in  darkness  with  no  stop  except  at  Downingtown  for 

"Judd's  letter  to  Pinkerton  from  Chicago,  Nov.  3,  1867.  This  may  be  read  in  the 
brochure  "History  and  Evidence,"  issued  by  the  Pinkerton  Agency  for  compli- 
mentary distribution;  or  in  the  Rev.  Arthur  Edwards'  "Sketch  of  the  Life  of 
Norman  B.  Judd";  pp.  11-17. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  29 

the  engine  to  take  on  water.  Telegraph  wires  along  the  line  of  the 
Northern  Central  between  Harrisburg  and  Baltimore  had  been 
grounded,  so  that  no  message  could  pass  over  them;  and  H.  E. 
Thayer,  local  manager  of  the  American  Telegraph  Company,  was 
on  duty  all  night  at  Philadelphia,  to  see  that  no  dispatches  passed 
to  Baltimore  that  way. 

The  sleeping  car  was  already  an  American  institution.  Berths 
had  been  reserved  for  Mrs.  Warne  of  the  Pinkerton  Agency  at  the 
rear  of  the  "sleeper"  attached  to  the  Baltimore  train  leaving  Phila- 
delphia at  ten-fifty.  She  had  explained  that  an  invalid  brother 
would  be  with  her,  and  a  curtain  was  therefore  hung  across  that 
end  of  the  car  and  permission  given  to  enter  by  the  rear  door.  Con- 
ductor Litzenberg  had  orders  to  hold  the  train  until  Superin- 
tendent Kenney  personally  handed  him  an  important  parcel  that 
President  Felton  was  sending  to  E.  J.  Allen  at  Willard's  in  Wash- 
ington. 

At  West  Philadelphia,  Kenney  and  Pinkerton  met  Lamon  and 
Lincoln,  and  the  four  were  driven  across  the  city  to  the  depot  of 
the  Philadelphia,  Washington  and  Baltimore.  Kenney  handed  the 
package  to  the  conductor,  who  at  once  started  his  train— only  five 
minutes  behind  time.  Litzenberg  was  blissfully  ignorant  that  the 
package  was  made  up  of  old  newspapers,  that  E.  J.  Allen  was  Allan 
Pinkerton,  and  that  the  ten-fifty  bore  Abraham  Lincoln  one  stage 
farther  upon  his  extraordinary  journey.  Lincoln  forthwith  turned 
in  and  the  miles  were  covered  without  incident.  At  Baltimore  the 
car  was  drawn  by  horses  from  the  President  Street  station  along 
Pratt  Street  and  down  Howard  to  the  Camden  station  of  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio.20  The  town  seemed  peaceable  enough  save  for  an 
inebriate  roaring  a  stanza  of  "Dixie."  "Quietly  and  rather  sadly" 
Lincoln  spoke  from  his  berth:  "No  doubt  there  will  be  a  great 
time  in  Dixie  by  and  by." 

The  rail  trip  from  Baltimore  to  Washington  took  in  those  days 
not  less  than  an  hour  and  a  half.  The  Washington  branch,  com- 
pleted in  1835,  left  the  main  line  at  the  Relay  House.  Its  stone 
viaduct  over  the  Patapsco  was  justly  considered  a  fine  work  of  en- 
gineering. At  about  six  on  the  morning  of  February  23rd,  Lincoln 

30  The  P.,  W.  &  B.  station  was  at  the  corner  of  President  Street  and  Canton  Avenue. 


30  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

and  his  companions  stepped  down  to  the  platform  of  the  super- 
fluously ugly  old  station  on  New  Jersey  Avenue  at  North  C  Street, 
not  far  from  the  Capitol.  Lincoln  was  wearing  his  felt  hat  and  had 
the  shawl  over  his  shoulders.  We  must  remember  that  he  was  not 
yet  imaged  in  the  popular  consciousness.  With  his  informal  head- 
gear and  a  nascent  and  disfiguring  beard,  he  might  well  have  been 
unrecognized  by  strangers,  but  those  at  all  familiar  with  his  ap- 
pearance could  hardly  have  mistaken  him. 

Suddenly  a  voice— part  Maine,  part  Illinois— was  heard  to  say, 
"You  can't  come  that  on  me,  Abe!"  It  was  the  voice  of  his  friend 
Representative  Elihu  Washburne  of  Galena.  Frederick  Seward 
had  telegraphed  from  Philadelphia  "a  word  previously  agreed 
upon,"  and  Secretary  Seward  was  on  hand  with  a  carriage.  The 
Secretary  wrote  home  that  day: 

The  President-elect  arrived  incog,  at  six  this  morning.  I  met  him  at 
the  depot;  and  after  breakfast  introduced  him  to  the  President  and 
Cabinet,  and  then  I  proceeded  with  him  to  call  on  General  Scott.  .  .  . 
He  is  very  cordial  and  kind  toward  me — simple,  natural  and  agreeable. 

Thousands  of  Washingtonians  had  decided  that,  weather  favoring, 
they  would  witness  Lincoln's  entry  on  Saturday  afternoon.  But 
long  before  noon  it  was  noised  about  that  already  he  was  at  Wil- 
lard's,  and  gradually  this  became  certain. 

At  the  Peace  Convention  in  Willard's  Hall  that  day,  L.  E.  Chit- 
tenden (afterward  Register  of  the  Treasury)  sat,  he  said,  between 
Waldo  Johnson  of  Missouri  and  James  A.  Seddon  (later  Confed- 
erate Secretary  of  War).  Johnson's  Negro  attendant  brought  a 
scrap  of  paper  on  which  Chittenden  could  not  help  reading: 

Lincoln  is  in  this  hotel! 

Johnson  exclaimed,  "How  the  devil  did  he  get  through  Balti- 
more?" Seddon  growled  back,  "What  would  prevent  his  passing 
through  Baltimore?"  21 

Hearsay  was  that  before  the  Peace  Convention  broke  up,  Lin- 
coln's presence  had  for  some  reason  been  desired;  or  that  govern- 
ment officials  had  telegraphed  Lincoln  to  shift  his  time  of  arrival 
because  the  Republican  Club  of  Baltimore  had  purposed  a  demon- 

21  "Recollections  of  President  Lincoln";  pp.  65-66. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  31 

stration  in  his  honor,  their  political  opponents  had  determined  to 
prevent  it,  and  trouble  seemed  likely.  "Our  own  solution,"  volun- 
teered the  National  Intelligencer,  "is  that  under  all  the  circum- 
stances ...  he  deemed  it  would  be  best  to  avoid  all  chances  of 
turmoil,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be  relieved  of  all  further  demon- 
strations, of  which  his  journey  had  already  been  amply  full."  22 

Another  version  was  that  a  political  group  in  Baltimore  had  ar- 
ranged to  escort  Lincoln  in  procession  and  had  applied  to  Marshal 
George  P.  Kane  for  police  protection.  Kane  had  objected,  but 
without  success,  that  a  brawl  might  occur  and  indignities  be  of- 
fered the  President-elect.  He  had  thought,  too,  that  the  citizens  of 
Baltimore  would  be  placed  in  a  false  light,  inasmuch  as  they  did 
not  sympathize  with  Mr.  Lincoln's  political  views.  Thereupon, 
gentlemen  "who  had  the  good  name  of  Baltimore  chiefly  at  heart" 
begged  Lincoln  by  telegraph  not  to  tarry  within  their  borders.23 

Over  the  country  had  spread  a  special  dispatch  filed  at  Harris- 
burg  at  eight  in  the  morning  of  Saturday  the  23rd  by  the  New 
York  Times'  correspondent,  Joseph  Howard,  Jr.  Reprinted,  either 
wholly  or  in  part,  by  many  other  newspapers,  it  was  so  widely 
digested  by  the  man-in-the-street  as  to  establish  a  legend.  It  pic- 
tured the  infuriated  Colonel  Sumner  as  "weeping  with  indigna- 
tion"; stated  that  Lincoln  had  left  at  nine  o'clock  of  the  preceding 
evening,  attended  by  "Superintendent  Lewis  and  one  friend";  and 
included  the  historic  sentence:  "He  wore  a  Scotch  plaid  cap  and 
a  very  long  military  cloak,  so  that  he  was  entirely  unrecogniza- 
ble." 24 

This  was  an  irresistible  morsel  for  the  cartoonists,  who  there- 
after were  to  be  amusedly  busy  with 

His  length  of  shambling  limb,  his  furrow'd  face. 

There  were  gibes  about  the  "great  shirt-tail  plot."  Bennett's 
Herald  25  chuckled,  "The  'Scotch  cap,'  we  dare  say,  was  furnished 
by  Gen.  [Simon]  Cameron,  from  his  relics  of  the  Highland  clan 
of  his  ancestors,  and  the  military  cloak  was  probably  furnished  by 

23  Feb.  25,  1861;  p.  3 — The  delegates  to  the  Convention  called  upon  him  in  a 
body  on  the  night  of  the  23rd.  The  Convention  adjourned  on  the  27th. 

23  New  York  Times,  Feb.  25;  p.  1    (Washington  correspondence). 

24  Times,  Feb.  25;  p.  1.  First  printed  in  an  extra  edition  on  the  23rd. 

25  Feb.  24,  27. 


32  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Col.  Sumner."  It  suggested  that  Old  Abe  "cut  Washington  alto- 
gether, and  return  to  New  York,  where  he  can  be  inaugurated 
magnificently  under  the  auspices  of  Barnum,  either  at  his  down 
town  establishment  or  at  the  Academy  of  Music— admittance 
twenty-five  cents."  .  .  .  The  Daily  News  26  referred  to  "The  Great 
Runaway"  and  "The  Flight  of  Abraham,"  saying  that  in  New 
York  it  was  all  regarded  "as  a  joke  of  the  largest  dimensions." 
From  Albany  the  Atlas  and  Argus21  stormed:  "This  termination 
of  his  journey,  by  a  flight  under  cover  of  darkness,  disguised  in 
old  clothes,  is  inglorious  and  disgraceful."  From  Columbus  the 
weekly  Crisis  sent  its  echo.  So  late  as  June  1864,  in  a  speech  at 
Hamilton,  Ohio,  the  egregious  Vallandigham,  who  had  sneaked 
back  from  Canada  to  take  part  in  the  McClellan  campaign,  woke 
laughter  and  applause  by  boasting,  "...  I  did  not  come  here  in  a 
plaid  cap  or  long  military  cloak."  28 

The  Confederate  agent  Mrs.  Rose  Greenhow  of  Maryland  re- 
galed British  readers  with  such  pabulum  as  this: 

Excited  and  absurd  discussions  and  plans  were  made  at  Washington 
and  other  places  as  to  the  means  by  which  he  should  reach  the  capital. 
Lincoln  had,  however,  formed  a  plan  of  his  own,  and,  having  far  more 
reticence  than  had  been  ascribed  to  him  by  his  partisans,  executed  it 
whilst  these  discussions  were  going  on,  and  suddenly  appeared  at  Wash- 
ington, at  six  o'clock,  under  the  disguise  of  a  "Scotch  cap  and  cloak," 
announcing  himself  with  characteristic  phraseology  in  the  apartments 
of  his  sleeping  Committee  of  Safety  at  Willard's  Hotel  with — "Hillo! 
Just  look  at  me!  By  jingo,  my  own  dad  wouldn't  know  me!"  29 

W.  H.  ("Bull  Run")  Russell,  correspondent  of  the  London  Times, 
perplexedly  jotted  down:  "People  take  particular  pleasure  in  tell- 
ing how  he  [Lincoln]  came  toward  the  seat  of  his  Government  dis- 
guised in  a  Scotch  cap  and  cloak,  whatever  that  may  mean."  Re- 
joicing after  the  first  Bull  Run,  the  Richmond  Daily  Whig 
expanded  on  the  "Alarm  at  Washington."  "Old  Scott  and  Lin- 

20  Feb.  25,  26,  27. 

27  Feb.  25. 

28  "The  War  of  the  Rebellion"  (Official  Records),  series  II,  vol.  vii;  p.  332. 

29  "My  Imprisonment  and  the  First  Year  of  Abolition  Rule  at  Washington" 
(London);  p.  14. — Mrs.  Greenhow  hated  Pinkerton  and  all  his  works — especially 
her  own  arrest;  for  it  was  through  him  she  had  been  ordered  to  the  Old  Capitol 
prison. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  33 

coin,"  it  noted,  "were  not  visible,  perhaps  they  were  adjusting  dis- 
guises to  make  good  their  escape."  30 

Some  years  later  the  New  York  Times  confessed  that  "an  officer 
entered  the  room  of  our  correspondent  at  the  hotel  [in  Harris- 
burg]  and  informed  him  of  what  had  occurred,  but  would  not 
permit  him  to  leave  the  room  until  morning,  by  which  time  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  arrived  in  Washington."  31  No  wonder  a  contem- 
porary said  of  Howard,  "Give  him  a  hook  and  he  will  hang  more 
yarn  upon  it  than  any  man  not  closely  related  to  Baron  Mun- 
chausen." 32  One  analyst  declared: 

This  Scotch  cap  and  cloak  business  is  surely  the  most  incongruous 
and  sensational  that  newspaper  readers  were  ever  called  upon  to  be- 
lieve. It  is  unfortunate,  perhaps,  for  the  life  of  this  well-imagined  story 
that  subsequent  disclosures  have  tended  to  deprive  it  of  that  beauty 
and  force  which  it  might  be  supposed  to  derive  from  its  historical 
truth.33 

There  was  no  "cloak,"  military  or  other.  The  felt  hat  may  have 
had  what  is  known  in  America  as  a  "Scotch  plaid"  pattern,  but  it 
was  not  a  Scotch  bonnet  of  any  sort. 

Howard  afterward  concocted  the  notorious  "bogus  proclama- 
tion" over  Lincoln's  name,  thus  getting  two  New  York  papers  into 
trouble  and  himself  into  Fort  Lafayette.  This  proclamation  called 
for  400,000  fresh  volunteers,  conveyed  the  impression  that  the 
Union  cause  was  pretty  generally  in  a  bad  way,  and  appointed 
May  26th  as  a  day  of  fasting,  humiliation,  and  prayer.  It  was 
printed  in  the  World  and  the  Journal  of  Commerce.  The  price  of 
gold  went  up  (which  presumably  was  the  intention)  and  there  was 
an  incipient  panic.  In  the  Gay  'Nineties,  features  of  the  New  York 
Recorder  were  "Howard's  Letter"  on  Sundays  and  "Howard's 
Column"  during  the  week.  We  catch  a  passing  view  of  this  jour- 
nalistic lion  in  1893  at  the  celebrated  trial  of  Miss  Lizzie  Borden, 
where  he  was  primus  inter  pares— the  most  conspicuous  among 
gentlemen  of  the  press. 

30  Aug.  6,  1861;  p.  2. 

31  Oct.  31,  1867;  p.  2. 

32  Daily  News,  Feb.  26,  1861;  p.  4. 

M  New  York  Leader,  July  10,  1869;  p.  3.  (From  an  article  by  Kenward  Philp  in 
the  Brooklyn  Monthly  for  July.) 


34  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

By  those  who  affect  to  pooh-pooh  the  idea  that  Lincoln,  had  he 
gone  through  Baltimore  as  scheduled,  might  really  have  been  in 
danger,  the  origin  of  that  idea  is  attributed  chiefly  to  a  "vain- 
glorious detective"— in  short,  to  Allan  Pinkerton.  In  1861  Pinker- 
ton,  a  stocky  Scot  who  had  immigrated  to  Illinois,  was  the  prin- 
cipal of  Pinkerton's  National  Detective  Agency,  which  he  founded 
in  1850.  This  pioneer  agency  of  his,  with  headquarters  in  Chicago, 
had  done  highly  successful  work  for  express  companies  and  rail- 
ways. George  B.  McClellan,  president  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi 
Railroad,  had  employed  Pinkerton  and  thought  well  of  him.  It  was 
quite  natural  that  with  such  a  record  he  should  be  retained  in  an 
emergency  by  President  Felton  of  the  Philadelphia,  Wilmington 
and  Baltimore. 

Felton  had  reason  to  believe  that  the  rougher  element  among 
Maryland's  secessionists  meant  to  destroy  railway  property  and  in- 
terfere with  the  service.  As  his  road  was  an  essential  link  between 
New  York  and  Washington,  he  realized  that,  in  the  existing  state 
of  the  nation,  traffic  ought  not  to  be  interrupted.  He  sent  for  Pink- 
erton, who  established  offices  at  Baltimore  in  a  building  on  South 
Street.  Operatives  were  on  duty  not  only  in  Baltimore  but  at 
Havre  de  Grace,  Magnolia,  and  Perrymansville  (now  Perryman). 
They  were  especially  to  search  for  plots  to  destroy  not  only  rail- 
way bridges  but  also  the  large  steamboat  that  ferried  trains  across 
the  Susquehanna.  On  the  basis  of  what  he  shortly  learned,  Pinker- 
ton recommended  that  guards  be  stationed  at  the  ferry  and  the 
various  bridges.  He  and  his  men,  he  says,  were  sensible  of  an  ob- 
stinate undercurrent  of  popular  feeling  against  Lincoln;  of  a  grow- 
ing conviction  that  something  ought  to  be  done  to  prevent  the  in- 
auguration. 

On  February  10th— the  day  before  Lincoln  bade  farewell  to 
Springfield— Pinkerton  had  from  William  Stearns,  an  official  of 
Felton's  line,  the  following  "tip": 

Yours  of  the  6th  inst.  received.  I  am  informed  that  a  son  of  a  dis- 
tinguished citizen  of  Maryland  said  that  he  had  taken  an  oath  with 
others  to  assassinate  Mr.  Lincoln  before  he  gets  to  Washington,  and 
they  may  attempt  to  do  it  while  he  is  passing  over  our  road.  I  think  you 
had  better  look  after  this  man  if  possible.  The  information  is  perfectly 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  35 

reliable.  I  have  nothing  more  to  say  at  this  time.  I  shall  try  to  see  you 
in  a  few  days. 

This  confirmed  vague  hints  that  already  had  been  brought  to  Pink- 
erton,  and  Felton  authorized  him  to  extend  the  scope  of  the  in- 
quiry.34 

It  was  readily  discovered,  he  says,  that  certain  groups,  ostensibly 
formed  as  military  units  and  drilling  as  such,  were  actually  politi- 
cal clubs.  They  were  associated  in  a  secret  organization  whose  aim 
was  not  only  to  further  general  secessionist  propaganda  but  also  by 
Lincoln's  assassination  to  hasten  a  division  of  the  states.  Two  of 
Pinkerton's  operatives— one  at  Baltimore  and  the  other,  Timothy 
Webster,  at  Perrymansville— were  accepted  as  members  in  clubs  of 
the  kind  and  thus  gained  a  knowledge  of  their  personnel  and  de- 
signs. (Subsequently,  while  Pinkerton,  as  Major  E.  J.  Allen,  was 
head  of  McClellan's  secret  service  in  the  Civil  War,  Tim  Webster 
was  his  most  trusted  assistant.)  35 

By  this  time  it  had  been  announced  that  Lincoln  would  arrive 
in  Baltimore  via  the  Northern  Central.  One  plan  discussed  was 
that  there  could  be  a  feint,  a  pretense  of  disorder  in  the  crowd  that 
would  surround  the  Calvert  Street  depot  and  fill  the  narrow  streets 
adjoining.  The  attention  of  the  police  would  apparently  be  di- 
verted—conspirators would  surge  forward— Lincoln  would  be  shot 
at  close  range.  Only  a  small  police  squad  would  be  detailed,  and 
this  would  be  in  sympathy  with  the  undertaking.  Shielded  by 
friends,  the  murderer  would  make  for  a  vessel  lying  in  the  basin 
and  so  escape  to  a  Southern  port. 

Nearly  a  quarter-century  afterward,  Pinkerton  cast  this  whole 
story  into  popular  form  in  the  early  chapters  of  his  partly  auto- 
biographical volume  "The  Spy  of  the  Rebellion."  The  greater 
portion  of  his  records  had  meanwhile  been  destroyed  in  the  Chi- 
cago fire  of  1871,  and  under  all  the  circumstances  we  should  hardly 
expect  at  every  point  in  this  narrative  the  severest  accuracy;  but 
numerous  witnesses  testified  to  its  substantial  truth. 

To  begin  with,  we  have  corroborative  letters  from  Pinkerton's 

34  The  text  of  the  letter  as  given  by  Stearns  himself  is  in  "History  and  Evidence"; 
p.  24. 

35  See  also  W.  G.  Beymer,  "On  Hazardous  Service";   pp.  259-287. 


36  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

own  files.  Eleven  of  these  letters  were  published  by  him  in  1868, 
shortly  after  they  were  written.  Not  only  Felton  but  such  railway- 
men  as  his  subordinates  William  Stearns  and  Henry  S.  Kenney— 
both  of  whom  were  not  unfamiliar  with  the  Baltimore  populace 
—avouch  their  belief  that  plans  were  indeed  afoot  for  Lincoln's 
murder.  We  now  know,  also,  that  a  person  acquainted  "with  the 
structure  of  Southern  society  and  with  the  working  of  its  political 
machinery"  had  assured  Felton  of  an  extensive  conspiracy  to  seize 
Washington  and  make  impossible  the  prompt  transportation  of 
troops.  "Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration  was  thus  to  be  prevented,  or 
his  life  was  to  fall  a  sacrifice."  Felton's  informant  was  the  distin- 
guished humanitarian  Dorothea  Lynde  Dix,  known  and  esteemed 
in  Maryland,  as  she  was  throughout  the  country,  for  her  wise 
philanthropy.36 

Furthermore,  other  detectives  than  Pinkerton's  had  likewise 
been  busy.  John  A.  Kennedy,  superintendent  of  New  York's  met- 
ropolitan police,  known  to  his  admirers  as  "Uncle  John"  or 
"J.  A.  K."  and  derisively  termed  by  a  Baltimore  scribe  "the  New 
York  Vidocq,"  had  in  December  i860  sent  two  officers  of  his  de- 
tective bureau  to  Washington,  where  trained  men  were  not  avail- 
able, and  in  January  1861  he  had  taken  a  third  officer.  The  three 
reported  directly  to  Col.  Charles  P.  Stone  of  Scott's  staff,  and  he  in 
turn  to  Scott.  Colonel  Stone  later  requested  that  Kennedy  assign 
men  to  Baltimore.  Kennedy  already  had  placed  two  officers  there 
on  his  own  responsibility  and  now  added  another,  David  S.  Book- 
staver,  who  assumed  to  be  a  music  agent  while  the  first  two  min- 
gled with  the  local  roughs.  These  three  men  in  Baltimore  were 
also  to  report  in  person  to  Colonel  Stone.  On  February  20th  Book- 
staver  obtained  information  that  caused  him  to  take  the  next  train 
to  Washington. 

In  a  memorandum  dated  February  21st,  Stone  wrote  as  follows: 

A  New  York  detective  officer,  who  has  been  on  duty  in  Baltimore  for 
three  weeks  reports  this  morning  that  there  is  serious  danger  of  vio- 
lence to,  and  the  assassination  of,  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  passage  through 
that  city,  should  the  time  of  that  passage  be  known.  He  states  that 

38  See  also  Felton's  letter  to  Lossing  ("Pictorial  Field  Book";  vol.  iii,  pp.  565-567), 
his  statement  in  W.  A.  Schouler's  "A  History  of  Massachusetts  in  the  Civil  War"; 
vol.  i,  pp.  59-65,  and  his  letter  to  Francis  Tiffany  in  Tiffany's  "Life"  of  Miss  Dix,  pp. 
333-334- 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  37 

there  are  banded  rowdies  holding  secret  meetings,  and  that  he  has 
heard  threats  of  mobbing  and  violence,  and  has  himself  heard  men 
declare  that  if  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to  be  assassinated  they  would  like  to  be 
the  men.  ...  He  deems  the  danger  one  which  the  authorities  and  people 
in  Baltimore  cannot  guard  against.  All  risk  might  be  easily  avoided  by 
a  change  in  the  traveling  arrangements  which  would  bring  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  a  portion  of  his  party  through  Baltimore  by  a  night  train  without 
previous  notice.37 

About  noon  of  the  21st,  Frederick  Seward  was  in  the  Senate  gallery 
when  word  was  sent  up  to  him  that  his  father,  Senator  Seward, 
wished  to  see  him  immediately.  It  appeared  that  Colonel  Stone 
had  just  brought  a  note  from  Scott.  To  Frederick  the  Senator 
handed  a  letter  addressed  to  Lincoln,  enclosing  both  Scott's  note 
and  Stone's  memorandum. 

"Whether  this  story  is  well  founded  or  not,"  he  said,  "Mr.  Lin- 
coln ought  to  know  of  it  at  once.  But  I  know  of  no  reason  to  doubt 
it.  General  Scott  is  impressed  with  the  belief  that  the  danger  is  real. 
Colonel  Stone  has  facilities  for  knowing  and  is  not  apt  to  exagger- 
ate. I  want  you  to  go  by  the  first  train.  Find  Mr.  Lincoln  wherever 
he  is. 

"Let  no  one  else  know  your  errand.  I  have  written  him  that  I 
think  he  should  change  his  arrangements,  and  pass  through  Balti- 
more at  a  different  hour.  I  know  it  may  occasion  some  embarrass- 
ment, and  perhaps  some  ill-natured  talk.  Nevertheless,  I  would 
strongly  advise  him  to  do  it."  "Public  Man"  confided  to  his  diary: 
"I  do  not  believe  one  word  of  the  cock-and-bull  story  .  .  .  which 
Mr.  Seward  told  me  to-day  had  been  communicated  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln as  coming  from  General  Scott."  .  .  .  He  was,  of  course,  ut- 
terly at  fault  in  adding,  ".  .  .  It  was  clear  to  me  that  Mr.  Seward 
himself  did  not  believe  one  word  of  it."  38 

It  was  after  ten  that  night  when  Frederick  Seward  was  able  to 
give  Lincoln  the  letter  with  its  enclosures.  Lincoln  sat  down  by  a 
gas-lamp  and  thoughtfully  read  them  all  twice  through  before  be- 
ginning to  ask  questions.  Frederick  said  that  personally  he  knew 
nothing  as  to  how  the  information  had  been  gained  or  who  might 
be  suspected. 

"Did  you,"  Lincoln  queried,  "hear  any  names  mentioned?  Did 

"Nicolay  and  Hay;  vol.  iii,  pp.  311-312   (from  the  MS.). 
88 North  America?!  Review,  Sept.  1879;  pp.  259-260. 


38  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

you,  for  instance,  ever  hear  anything  said  about  such  a  name  as 
Pinkerton?" 

No,  Frederick  answered— the  only  names  he  had  heard  were 
those  of  Stone  and  Scott.  After  a  moment,  Lincoln  continued: 

"I  may  as  well  tell  you  why  I  ask.  There  were  stories  or  rumors 
some  time  ago,  before  I  left  home,  about  people  who  were  intend- 
ing to  do  me  a  mischief.  I  never  attached  much  importance  to 
them— never  wanted  to  believe  any  such  thing.  So  I  never  would 
do  anything  about  them,  in  the  way  of  taking  precautions  and  the 
like.  Some  of  my  friends,  though,  thought  differently— Judd  and 
others— and  without  my  knowledge  they  employed  a  detective  to 
look  into  the  matter.  It  seems  he  has  occasionally  reported  what  he 
found,  and  only  today,  since  we  arrived  at  this  house,  he  brought 
this  story,  or  something  similar  to  it,  about  an  attempt  on  my  life 
in  the  confusion  and  hurly-burly  of  the  reception  at  Baltimore. 

"That  is  exactly  why  I  was  asking  you  about  names.  If  different 
persons,  not  knowing  of  each  other's  work,  have  been  pursuing 
separate  clues  that  led  to  the  same  result,  why  then  it  shows  there 
may  be  something  in  it."  .  .  .39 

A  letter  from  Kennedy  to  the  historian  Lossing  was  printed 
widely  and  in  full  in  American  newspapers.  In  quoting  from  this, 
Pinkerton  mistakenly  attributed  to  Kennedy  the  words,  "I  know 
nothing  of  any  connection  of  Mr.  Pinkerton  with  the  matter."  To 
which  Pinkerton  responded:  "In  this  respect,  Mr.  Kennedy  spoke 
the  truth:  he  did  not  know  of  my  connection  with  the  passage  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  nor  was  it  my  intention  that  he  should  know  of  it." 
The  words  were,  in  fact,  Stone's,  and  Kennedy  had  so  given  them; 
but  it  remains  equally  true  that  Kennedy  at  the  time  had  known 
no  more  of  Pinkerton  than  Pinkerton  knew  of  Kennedy.  Oddly 
enough,  however,  the  two,  each  quite  unaware  of  the  other,  were 
on  opposite  sides  of  that  dividing  curtain  in  the  sleeping-car  from 
Philadelphia  to  Washington. 

Something  has  been  made  of  the  fact  that  in  the  "Life  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln"  which  Chauncey  F.  Black  ghost-wrote  for  Ward 

39  Lossing,  "Pictorial  Field  Book";  vol.  ii,  pp.  147-149.  New  York  Times,  Oct. 
31,  1867;  p.  2.  Nicolay  and  Hay;  vol.  iii,  pp.  302-316.  F.  W.  Seward,  "Seward  at 
Washington";  pp.  508-511,  and  "Recollections";  pp.  134-139.  See  also  "Abraham 
Lincoln.  Tributes  from  His  Associates";  pp.  60-65. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  39 

Lamon,  Lamon  after  ten  years  of  implicit  belief  professed  to  have 
decided  that  there  had  been  not  only  no  conspiracy  but  "no  defi- 
nite purpose  in  the  heart  of  even  one  man  to  murder  Mr.  Lincoln 
at  Baltimore."  Just  how  this  could  be  "perfectly  manifest"  is,  how- 
ever, nowhere  explained.  Instead,  several  pages  are  devoted  to 
ineffectual  ridicule  of  Pinkerton  and  his  operatives.  At  the  same 
time,  with  a  curious  inconsistence,  the  book  does  seek  to  involve 
Representative  Webster  of  Maryland  and  Governor  Hicks  in  a 
supposititious  scheme  to  "kill  Lincoln";  and  to  that  end  introduces 
a  letter  ascribed  to  Hicks  but  of  more  than  doubtful  authenticity. 
Lamon  paid  Herndon  for  the  use  of  some  of  Herndon's  papers. 
The  book  quotes  at  length  from  a  confidential  report  of  a  Pinker- 
ton  agent,  and  states  that  the  original  was  one  of  a  number  lent 
to  Herndon  by  Pinkerton.  Though  this  is  possible,  the  isolated 
report  does  nothing  to  promote  Lamon's  argument.  Herndon  ap- 
parently did  not  share  the  views  of  the  Lamon  "Life."  Isaac  N. 
Arnold  also  examined  the  daily  reports  of  Pinkerton's  men  and 
held  a  quite  different  opinion.40  From  Lamon's  later  and  matured 
"Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln"  these  ideas  were  entirely  de- 
leted; and  replacing  them  we  have: 

Neither  he  [Lincoln]  nor  the  country  generally  then  understood  the 
true  facts  concerning  the  dangers  to  his  life.  It  is  now  an  acknowledged 
fact  that  there  never  was  a  moment  from  the  day  he  crossed  the  Mary- 
land line,  up  to  the  time  of  his  assassination,  that  he  was  not  in  danger 
of  death  by  violence.  .  .  . 

It  is  known  that,  when  leaving  Harrisburg,  Lamon  was  a  veri- 
table walking  arsenal.  Possibly  his  defensive  equipment— which  is 
said  to  have  included  brass  knuckles  and  a  sling-shot— supplied 
material  for  the  Daily  News'  irresponsible  charge  that  "nearly 
every  member  of  the  President's  suite  was  armed  to  the  teeth  with 
instruments  much  in  use  at  the  South  and  West,  and  commonly 
to  be  found  in  the  breast  pockets  of  gamblers  and  gentlemen  of 
sportive  associations  and  pursuits."  After  Lincoln  had  made  him 
marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia  and  he  had  set  up  as  some- 
thing of  a  detective  in  his  own  right,  Lamon  may  for  a  space  have 
resented  the  notion  that  his  sole  presence  had  not  been  Lincoln's 
sufficient  protection. 

40  See  Harper's  Magazine,  June  1868;  p.  123. 


40  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

If  he  had  entered  Baltimore  by  day,  would  Lincoln  have  been 
murdered?  The  New  York  Tribune  said  editorially  that  it  had 
been  credibly  informed  that  for  several  days  stocks  were  sold  in 
Wall  Street  by  persons  having  "inside"  information  that  he  would 
be  killed  before  reaching  Washington.41  Denied  their  advantages, 
we  shall,  of  course,  never  know.  Even  Pinkerton,  as  he  told  Lin- 
coln, would  not  venture  to  be  certain  about  it.  Was  there  real 
danger,  or  was  this,  as  some  apparently  would  imply,  an  elaborate 
hoax  contrived  by  ingenious  Baltimoreans?  Suppose  we  look  over 
the  ground. 

In  American  cities  that  was  a  rowdy,  gun-toting  age.  Cincinnati, 
Boston,  New  York  were  among  those  that  had  known  their  mobs. 
At  Cincinnati,  Birney's  presses  were  repeatedly  smashed,  and  the 
authorities  notified  Birney  that  they  had  no  force  adequate  to  pro- 
tect him.  In  Boston,  "gentlemen  of  property  and  standing" 
dragged  Garrison  through  the  streets  at  a  rope's  end.  In  New  York, 
twenty-two  persons  were  killed  in  the  Astor  Place  riot;  the  "Ryn- 
ders  mob"  (so  called  from  Isaiah  Rynders,  the  United  States  mar- 
shal who  abetted  it)  drove  Wendell  Phillips  from  the  Broadway 
Tabernacle;  the  Seventh  Regiment  was  ordered  out  when  Mayor 
Wood  and  the  old  municipal  police  resisted  the  introduction  of 
the  metropolitan  system.  But  in  the  general  mind,  over  a  term  of 
years,  a  kind  of  evil  pre-eminence  had  perhaps  been  awarded  to 
Baltimore. 

Baltimore,  having  then  a  population  of  about  200,000,  was  a 
town  of  charming  red-brick  Georgian  houses  with  marble  steps— 
the  home  of  the  renowned  clipper  ship— a  place  of  wealth,  fashion, 
well-kept  shops,  comfortable  hotels  distinguished  for  their  cuisine 
—a  center  of  heroic  legends  and  genuine  culture.  It  was  also  a  town 
of  cesspools,  polluted  water,  and  riots.  Rioting  had  been  since  1812 
a  common  diversion  there. 

Relatively  minor  affairs  were  that  of  1835  and  the  B.  &  O.  fray 
of  1857.  ^n  ^56  and  1859  there  were  tremendous  election  melees 
in  which  firearms,  knives,  and  clubs  were  freely  wielded.  Know- 
Nothings  and  Democrats,  "Rip-Raps"  and  "Reformers"— all 
packed  weapons.  Even  the  cobbler's  awl  became  keenly  though 
unobtrusively  active.  Governor  Ligon  complained  to  the  legisla- 

*  Feb.  25;  p.  4. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  41 

ture  of  "a  new  element  in  the  political  controversies  of  the  times, 
which,  in  my  opinion,  has  been  productive  of  more  baneful  conse- 
quences .  .  .  than  anything  which  has  occurred  since  the  organi- 
zation of  our  government— I  mean  the  formation  and  encourage- 
ment of  secret  political  societies." 

The  Maryland  council  of  the  Know-Nothings,  stronger  than  any 
other,  had  retained  its  power  longer.  Throughout  Baltimore, 
Know-Nothing  clubs  and  lodges  were  active,  often  with  names 
more  fitting  for  Sicilian  banditti— names  like  Blood-Tubs,  Plug- 
Uglies,  Black  Snakes,  Red  Necks.  The  Constitutional  Union  party, 
which  held  its  convention  in  Baltimore  in  May  i860,  was  made  up 
in  part  of  Know-Nothing  odds-and-ends.  (It  may  be  noted  that  all 
three  candidates  opposed  to  Lincoln  were  nominated  at  conven- 
tions in  Baltimore.)  Irrespective  of  politics,  unemployed  men 
abounded,  and  barroom  champions  ready  for  brawls.  The  volun- 
teer firemen  were  a  pugnacious  lot  and  hailed  a  fracas.  Jacob  Frey, 
himself  once  a  marshal  of  Baltimore's  police,  speaks  in  his  "Rem- 
iniscences" (p.  98)  of  the  "horrible  atrocities"  of  the  election  riots. 
"The  Sunpapers  of  Baltimore"  (a  symposium  by  Gerald  W.  John- 
son and  others)  refers  (p.  59)  to  the  "many  casualties"  and  to  the 
"human  flotsam"  of  the  town's  "turbulent  days." 

Buchanan,  when  traveling  from  Lancaster  to  Washington  for 
his  inaugural  in  1857,  had  a  taste  of  Baltimore's  quality.  With 
niece  Harriet  Lane  and  nephew  James  B.  Hardy,  and  escorted  by 
the  Lancaster  Fencibles,  he  was  taken  in  procession  from  the  Bol- 
ton depot  of  the  Northern  Central 42  to  the  City  Hotel.  For  nearly 
an  hour  roughs  hooted  and  hissed  him,  stoned  his  carriage,  and 
pelted  with  brickbats  his  guard  of  honor.  Declining  the  proffered 
dinner,  he  did  not  linger.  In  consequence  the  New  York  Tribune 
proposed  "the  construction  of  an  air-line  railway  post-route  from 
the  North  to  Washington  City,  which  shall  avoid  Baltimore."  43  In 
the  evening  after  Buchanan's  inauguration  a  party  of  Baltimorean 
visitors  in  Washington  gathered  at  the  corner  of  Pennsylvania 
Avenue  and  Sixth  Street  (where  the  National  Hotel  was)  and 
fired  revolvers,  terrifying  the  citizenry.44 

*"  Above  the  Calvert  Street  station. 

"Mar.  n,  1857;  P-  5- 

"New  York  Times,  Mar.  5,  1857;  p.  1. 


42  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Some  thought  that  Baltimore  ought  to  choose  public  officials 
who  would  resist  and  punish  wholesale  lawlessness;  but  apparently 
more  thought  otherwise.  The  disorderly  element  became  thor- 
oughly accustomed  to  disorder.  The  merchants  and  jobbers,  most 
of  whose  trade  was  with  the  South,  were,  it  may  be,  preoccupied 
with  dreams  of  the  day  when  their  city  would  be  the  rich  metropo- 
lis of  a  new  nation.  When  Washington's  Mayor  Berret  sounded 
Baltimore's  Marshal  Kane  as  to  possible  indignities— if  nothing 
worse— in  store  for  Lincoln,  the  Marshal,  locally  a  great  favorite, 
replied  complacently  that  the  "insult  offered  to  President 
Buchanan"  was,  as  everybody  knew,  "the  act  of  two  or  three 
members  of  one  of  the  fanatical  clubs  of  his  political  opponents 
which  at  that  time  infested  our  city,  but  which  have  long  since 
been  numbered  among  the  things  that  were." 

Although  its  better  newspapers  expressed  a  pious  wish  to  free 
the  Monument  City  from  this  lax  condition,  their  methods  cannot 
be  deemed  unqualifiedly  happy.  On  the  morning  of  February 
23rd,  1861,  the  American  sounded  this  note: 

Mr.  Lincoln  passes  through  our  city  to-day.  As  the  representative  of 
political  and  sectional  views  which  can  find  but  few  adherents  among 
our  people  and  no  sympathy  from  the  masses,  the  President-elect  will 
miss  here  the  popular  ovations  that  have  attended  every  step  of  his 
progress  from  Springfield  up  to  the  borders  of  Maryland. 

It  was  true  enough:  there  had  been  no  greeting  from  the  state,  no 
resolutions  from  its  legislature,  no  invitation  from  the  governor, 
no  committee  from  the  municipality.  The  American  felt  called 
upon  publicly  to  justify  Mayor  Brown  for  even  having  consented 
to  ride  with  Mr.  Lincoln. 

The  Sun  of  the  same  date,  though  admitting  that  Buchanan  had 
been  "exposed  to  insult  from  the  ruffian  ascendancy  of  the  time," 
argued  that  this  was  "a  disgrace,  not  to  our  city,  but  to  the  forms 
of  authority  which  bad  men  had  usurped."  Now,  it  said,  "we  live 
under  a  lawful  government"— to  wit,  that  of  the  Breckinridge 
Democracy— "and  enjoy  again  the  blessings  of  civilization."  It  sup- 
posed that  Lincoln,  partly  because  of  the  "somewhat  eccentric 
style"  of  him— he  had  been  plebeianly  grasping  "many  a  dingy 
paw  from  the  'great  unwashed'  "—would  be  "an  object  of  curiosity 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  43 

to  thousands  .  .  .  who,  having  nothing  better  to  do  in  this  'arti- 
ficial crisis,'  will  avail  themselves  of  a  free  ticket  to  have  a  look  at 
him."  As  for  the  Exchange,  it  hoped,  so  far  as  Lincoln  was  con- 
cerned, "that  no  opportunity  may  be  afforded  him— or  that,  if  it 
be  afforded,  he  will  not  embrace  it— to  repeat  in  our  midst  the 
sentiments  which  he  is  reported  to  have  expressed  yesterday  in 
Philadelphia."  The  overtone  of  menace  here  is  hardly  to  be  mis- 
taken. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  next  day  the  remainder  of  the  Lin- 
coln party  went  through  Baltimore  without  so  much  as  a  ripple. 
This  is  unqualifiedly  and  absurdly  false. 

Long  before  the  "special"  from  Harrisburg  was  due,  an  ill- 
tempered  crowd  of  some  15,000  was  massed  about  the  Calvert 
Street  station,  extending  along  Calvert  to  the  Battle  Monument 
and  up  the  slope  of  Franklin  Street  as  far  as  Courtland.  At  the  ap- 
proach of  the  train  there  was  a  wild  onset.  "The  most  terrific 
shouts  and  yells  were  sent  up,"  chronicled  the  Republican,  "ex- 
celling anything  in  the  way  of  excitement  we  have  ever  witnessed." 
The  mob  overran  the  station  and  swarmed  onto  the  platforms  of 
the  cars.  Marshal  Kane's  policemen  seem  not  to  have  been  much 
in  evidence  during  the  proceedings. 

"Come  out,  Old  Abe!"  shouted  a  medley  of  voices.  "Let's  have 
him  out!" 

Faces  peered  in  at  the  windows.  Groans  and  catcalls  increased 
at  the  appearance  of  the  committee  of  the  Republican  Association 
that  had  gone  to  Pennsylvania  to  extend  solitary  courtesies.  Two 
of  the  committee  had  their  hats  bashed  over  their  eyes.  Carriages 
finally  took  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the  young  Lincolns  to  the  home  of 
John  S.  Gittings,  president  of  the  Northern  Central,  on  Mt.  Ver- 
non Square.  For  at  least  a  half-hour  the  disappointed  and  vindic- 
tive mob  swayed  this  way  and  that,  "uttering  every  imaginable 
description  of  noise."  After  dinner,  the  Lincolns  were  fairly 
smuggled  aboard  cars  held  for  the  party  at  Camden  station. 

They  were  soon  beyond  the  limits  of  Baltimore,  and  from  the 
moderates  in  that  city  rose  a  sigh  of  relief.  Though  the  Sun  might 
protest  that  the  conspiracy  story  was  an  "infamous  lie"  and  assail 


44  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Governor  Hicks  for  his  testimony  before  the  Select  Committee  of 
Five,  the  American  acknowledged  the  possibility  of  considerable 
excitement  and  "unpleasant"  demonstrations.  It  was  pointed  out 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had,  after  all,  avoided  what  might  have  been  an 
unfortunate  occasion.  To  the  brethren  in  New  Orleans  the  Bal- 
timore correspondent  of  the  Picayune  confided: 

We  are  very  well  satisfied  that  Mr.  Lincoln  assumed  the  responsibility 
of  giving  us  the  slip.  ...  It  is  altogether  possible  some  of  his  Republic 
can  friends  in  our  city,  had  they  appeared  conspicuously  in  any  parade 
or  procession,  might  have  been  roughly  handled,  and  had  an  affray 
commenced  in  this  way,  with  an  ungovernable  populace  of  thousands 
assembled  together,  none  can  foretell  the  consequences.45 

Less  than  two  months  had  gone  by  when  events  made  their  own 
definitive  comment  on  the  Sun's  unsmiling  claim  of  February  26th 
that  "there  is  not,  perhaps,  in  the  world,  a  better  governed  and 
more  orderly  city."  Marching  on  April  18th  from  the  Bolton  depot 
to  the  Camden  station,  five  companies  of  Pennsylvania  troops, 
with  thirty-four  muskets  among  them  and  no  ammunition,  were 
set  upon  by  a  mob  of  10,000  with  stones,  brickbats,  and  bottles. 
This  was  only  practice  for  the  following  day.  On  the  19th  the  Sixth 
Massachusetts  regiment  arrived  at  the  President  Street  station.  A 
portion  of  the  regiment  was  hauled  along  Pratt  Street  in  the  usual 
way,  just  as  Lincoln  and  his  companions  had  been  on  the  morn- 
ing of  February  23rd.  The  increasing  mob  thereupon  tore  up 
pavement  and  threw  heaps  of  the  cobblestones  on  the  track.  The 
remaining  troops  attempted  to  march  toward  Camden  station  and 
cobbles  began  to  fly.  At  the  corner  of  Pratt  and  Commerce  Streets 
a  perfect  fusillade  of  them  was  poured  into  the  soldiery,  who  at 
last  opened  fire.  Thus  was  shed  what  James  Randall  in  his  "Mary- 
land, My  Maryland!"  saluted  as 

the  patriotic  gore 
That  flecked  the  streets  of  Baltimore — 

but  Randall  neglected  to  mention  that  blood  was  shed  and  lives 
were  given  by  Massachusetts  men  bound  peaceably  to  their  duty. 
After  a  while  Marshal  Kane  showed  up  and  enjoined  the  mob  to 

45  Mar.  7,  1861.  The  italics  are  the  present  writer's. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  45 

obey  the  laws.  We  may  repeat  the  apposite  question  originally 
framed  by  Isaac  N.  Arnold: 

Would  a  mob  that  attacked  a  regiment  of  armed  men  have  been 
deterred  from  attacking  one  man,  whom  they  regarded  as  a  tyrant  and 
the  chief  object  of  their  hatred?  46 

Thus  were  ushered  in  the  "three  glorious  days"— days  when 
Maryland  Guards  and  City  Guards,  led  by  Isaac  R.  Trimble  and 
by  Marshal  Kane  himself,  with  his  policemen  to  help,  burned 
bridges  along  the  northward  railway  lines;  when  the  police  seized 
four  carloads  of  military  stores  at  the  President  Street  depot  and 
took  them  to  38  and  40  Holliday  Street,  right  opposite  Marshal 
Kane's  office;  when  somehow  small  arms  in  large  quantities  came 
suddenly  from  concealment  (a  Colonel  Denson,  for  instance,  sup- 
plying from  his  warehouse  900  muskets);  when  the  ladies  blos- 
somed forth  with  rosettes  and  even  dolls  wore  Confederate  colors. 

Kane  had  assured  Samuel  Felton  that  all  the  talk  of  burning 
bridges  was  so  much  nonsense.  He  was  the  identical  Kane  who  had 
also  politely  informed  Mayor  Berret  of  Washington  that  Balti- 
more folk  believed  the  bad  old  days  of  mobs  and  riots  were  at  an 
end,  and  that  the  President-elect  needed  no  armed  escort  while 
passing  through  Baltimore  or  sojourning  in  it.  When  later  the  city 
was  placed  under  martial  law,  he  refused  to  surrender  arms  in  the 
possession  of  the  city  authorities  and  was  imprisoned  on  charges  of 
protecting  contraband  traffic  in  arms  and  being  head  of  a  force 
hostile  to  the  United  States  government.  On  his  release  he  took 
refuge  within  the  Confederate  lines,  and  he  remained  there  until 
the  close  of  the  war.  Superintendent  Kennedy  from  personal 
knowledge  had  no  faith  in  him  and  early  in  January  had  cautioned 
friends  of  the  Union  to  beware  of  him.47  Small  wonder  that  Pink- 
erton  in  February  distrusted  a  police  force  commanded  by  Kane 
—a  force  that  even  with  the  best  of  intentions  would  have  been 
unable  to  cope  with  things  as  they  were. 

Several  Northern  businessmen  were  told  to  leave  the  city. 
".  .  .  A  manufacture  of  hemp"  was  shown  to  them,  said  a  local 

46  Harper's  Magazine,  June  1868;  p.  126. 

47  Kane  told  Kennedy  that  when  Virginia  seceded  by  a  convention,  Maryland 
would  secede  "by  gravitation." 


46  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

paper,  and  they  were  assured  that  if  they  were  found  in  Baltimore 
after  a  specified  time,  one  end  of  the  rope  would  be  applied  to 
their  necks  and  the  other  to  a  lamppost.  "Acting  upon  this  hint, 
several  Union-shriekers  have  mysteriously  disappeared."  .  .  ,48 
This  was  in  the  spirit  of  Charleston,  where  on  April  12  th  the  well- 
known  portrait  painter  G.  P.  A.  Healy,  who  had  been  finishing  a 
portrait  of  Beauregard,  was  told  by  his  friends  the  Frazers  that  he 
must  leave  their  house  as  there  was  talk  of  tarring  and  feathering 
the  "damn'  Yankee."  Mayor  Allberger  of  Buffalo,  arriving  in  New 
York  from  a  trip  to  Baltimore,  said  that  at  the  Eutaw  House  he 
had  been  surrounded  and  threatened  by  drunken  ruffians  and  that 
every  shop  in  Baltimore  had  been  emptied  of  arms  by  the  mob.49 

It  is  nothing  to  the  point  that  some  details  of  the  conspiracy 
story  may  today  take  on  a  fantastic  quality.  That  is  equally  true 
of  the  original  Ku  Klux,  the  Molly  Maguires,  the  I.  W.  W.  Nativist 
societies  like  the  Order  of  the  Star-Spangled  Banner  or  the  Order 
of  United  Americans  had  their  grotesque  features.  So  did  the 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  and  their  successors.  So,  for  that 
matter,  did  the  Know-Nothings,  who  for  years  influenced  the 
course  of  Baltimore's  life. 

Nor  may  Cipriano  Ferrandini,  whom  Pinkerton  described  as 
among  the  conspirators,  be  brushed  aside  (as  he  was  by  Lamon 
and  others)  merely  because  he  happened  to  be  a  barber— as  if 
Figaro  were  not  a  designing  rogue.  Lieutenant  Smith,  Lew  Wal- 
lace's chief  of  detectives,  found  a  Confederate  recruiting-office  in 
Baltimore  in  so  prosaic  and  improbable  a  spot  as  Christian  Em- 
merich's shoe  shop  on  South  Gay  Street.  Ferrandini  was,  to  be  sure, 
listed  in  the  Baltimore  directory  as  "hair-dresser,  Calvert,  under 
Barnum's  hotel."  But  the  directory  naturally  did  not  add  that  he 
had  been  a  captain  of  infantry  in  Juarez'  army  in  Mexico,  that  he 
had  commanded  the  Lafayette  Guards  in  Baltimore,  that  the  Select 
Committee  of  Five  had  called  him  before  it.  He  was  at  that  time 
drilling  the  Constitutional  Guards  at  the  headquarters  of  the  Na- 
tional Volunteers— the  Volunteers  being,  he  said,  a  former  politi- 
cal association  that  had  donned  military  trimmings.  He  thought 

48  The  South,  Apr.  23;  p.  3. 

49  Evening  Day-Book,  Apr.  22;  p.  3.  Healy,  "Reminiscences  of  a  Portrait  Painter"; 
p.  68. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  47 

that  if  Northern  militia  tried  to  go  through  Baltimore,  something 
would  happen;  and  after  it  did  happen,  he  was  elected  captain  of 
the  Winans  Guard,  attached  to  the  Fifth  regiment,  Maryland 
Volunteer  Infantry.50 

To  most  persons,  assassination  for  political  reasons  was  then  in 
the  United  States  an  incredible  business.  Henry  Sanford,  who,  as 
representative  of  the  American  Telegraph  Company,  had  been  at 
the  Continental  Hotel  that  night  of  February  21st,  said  that  in 
those  days  Americans  generally  thought  such  a  thing  impossible. 
"I  went  South,"  he  said,  ''immediately  after  this  occurrence  .  .  . 
and  good  men  .  .  .  did  not  credit  the  story  that  there  was  to  be 
any  attempt  to  assassinate  Mr.  Lincoln  at  Baltimore.  ...  I  am 
happy  to  put  on  record  my  belief  that  the  public  authorities,  and 
the  public  men,  in  the  Confederacy  at  that  time  would  never  have 
countenanced  it."  .  .  .  That  such  a  plot  was  hatched,  however, 
he  had  not  for  a  moment  doubted  since  the  day  when  first  he  heard 
of  it  from  Allan  Pinkerton.51 

Pinkerton  had  worked  on  this  job  con  amore.  He  had  always 
been  a  keen  Abolitionist,  and  the  "underground  railway"  was  a 
road  he  had  served  without  pay.  He  considered  John  Brown  "a 
greater  man  than  Napoleon  ever  dared  to  be,  and  as  great  a  man 
as  Washington."  In  spite  of  his  known  anti-slavery  principles,  his 
ability  was  such  that  in  Pierce's  time  Secretary  James  Guthrie  had 
retained  him  as  a  detective  for  the  Treasury  Department.  There 
could  scarcely  have  been  vainglory  for  him  in  this  matter  of  Lin- 
coln's night  trip,  his  part  in  which  was  unknown  to  the  public 
until  some  years  after  the  war.  The  military  secret  service  post  he 
held  in  1861-1862  he  owed  not  to  Lincoln  or  Lincoln's  friends  but 
to  McClellan.  He  left  it  when  Burnside  took  command  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  After  that  he  was  for  a  time  occupied  in 
running  down  fraudulent  claims  against  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment. 

Judicious  minds  saw  quickly  the  prudence  of  Lincoln's  action. 
Realizing  his  importance  to  the  country,  they  knew  that,  had  he 

60  Report  of  the  Committee;  also  The  South,  Apr.  24,  1861;  p.  3. 
51  From  the  original  letter  to  Robert  Pinkerton   (New  York,  May  17,  1892)  in  the 
Pinkerton  files.  Sanford  was  then  president  of  the  Adams  Express  Company. 


48  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

risked  his  life  in  the  face  of  threatened  peril,  he  would  have  been 
blamed  as  foolhardy  by  many  of  the  same  persons  who  now  stig- 
matized him  as  cowardly.  Nevertheless,  the  general  effect  had  been 
one  of  anti-climax.  Republicans  were  mortified  and  chagrined.  It 
had  been,  they  felt,  an  inauspicious  beginning,  certain  to  be  mis- 
judged by  North  and  South  alike.  Northern  Democrats  sneered,  as 
Judd  had  been  sure  they  would.  Stanton,  Buchanan's  Attorney- 
General,  said  Lincoln  was  a  "low,  cunning  clown"  and  had  "crept 
into  Washington."  52 

Upon  Lincoln  himself  the  occurrence  left  its  unequivocal  mark. 
According  to  Lamon,  Lincoln  once  said  to  him,  "...  The  way  we 
skulked  into  this  city,  in  the  first  place,  has  been  a  source  of  shame 
and  regret  to  me,  for  it  did  look  so  cowardly."  53  Colonel  McClure 
wrote:  "I  have  several  times  heard  Lincoln  refer  to  this  journey, 
and  always  with  regret.  Indeed,  he  seemed  to  regard  it  as  one  of 
the  grave  mistakes  in  his  public  career."  54  "Threats  that  he  never 
should  be  inaugurated  had  been,"  admits  James  G.  Blaine,  "nu- 
merous and  serious."  Yet  to  his  life's  end,  Blaine  says,  "he  regretted 
that  he  had  not,  according  to  his  own  desire,  gone  through  Balti- 
more in  open  day."  .  .  ,55 

Thus  was  intensified  in  him  the  strain  of  fatalism  that  was  his 
by  nature.  Later  or  sooner,  if  they  wished  to  kill  him,  they  would 
—and  for  their  pains  get  Vice-President  Hannibal  Hamlin  as  presi- 
dent. If  he  could  manage  to  slip  away,  he  would  ride  alone  into  the 
country  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  even  though  a  rifle  shot  startled 
his  horse,  which  "unceremoniously  separated  me  from  my  eight- 
dollar  plug-hat."  At  Fort  Stevens  he  would  calmly  make  himself  a 
target  for  sharpshooters  until  young  Captain  Holmes  with  blazing 
indiscretion  called,  "Get  down,  you  fool!"  He  would,  if  he  liked, 
saunter  to  a  White  House  gate  to  look  for  a  newsboy,  or  at  night 
go  unattended  along  the  dim  path  to  the  old  War  Department. 
Death,  a  necessary  end,  would  come  when  it  would  come;  but 
never  again  should  anybody  have  ground  for  saying  he  was  afraid. 

53 North  American  Review,  Sept.  1879;  pp.  261-262. 

63  "Recollections";  p.  266. 

64  "Our  Presidents";  p.  48. 

""Twenty  Years  of  Congress";  vol.  i,  p.  280. 


A  PRESIDENT-ELECT  TAKES  A  JOURNEY  49 

Baltimore  was  placed  securely  under  martial  law.  Burned 
bridges  were  rebuilt,  railway  service  was  resumed,  mails  went  for- 
ward, troop  trains  met  scowls  but  no  active  interference.  Out- 
wardly there  was  change;  but  always,  beneath  the  surface  (as  the 
provost  marshal-general  would  have  told  you),  smoldered  disaf- 
fection. Between  Baltimore  and  Richmond  was  constant  inter- 
change of  news.  Traffic  in  contraband  of  war  (some  of  it  originat- 
ing in  Philadelphia  but  having  outlet  through  Baltimore)  was  un- 
ceasing by  both  water  and  land.  From  Baltimore  went,  in  amazing 
quantities,  medical  and  other  supplies  for  the  Confederate  armies. 
To  Baltimore  large  amounts  of  Virginia  tobacco  were  run  through 
the  blockade.  The  Confederate  raider  Col.  Harry  Gilmor  (who 
plundered  in  Carroll  and  Frederick  Counties)  and  most  of  his 
command  were  Baltimoreans;  and  vessels  clearing  under  sundry 
pretexts  landed  recruits  on  the  Virginia  shore. 

When  Gen.  Lew  Wallace  in  March  1864  assumed  command  of 
the  Middle  Department,  his  predecessor,  General  Schenck,  ap- 
prised him: 

Your  trouble  will  have  its  origin  in  Baltimore.  Baltimore  viewed 
socially  is  peculiar.  There  is  more  culture  to  the  square  block  there 
than  there  is  in  Boston;  actual  culture.  The  question  of  the  war  divided 
the  old  families,  but  I  was  never  able  to  discover  the  dividing  line.  Did 
I  put  a  heavy  hand  on  one  of  the  Secessionists,  a  delegation  of  influen- 
tial Unionists  at  once  hurried  to  the  President  and  begged  the  culprit 
off.  The  most  unfortunate  thing  in  connection  with  the  Department 
and  its  management  is  that  it  is  only  a  pleasant  morning's  jaunt  by  rail 
from  Baltimore  to  Washington.  .  .  . 

So  near  was  Baltimore  that,  although  he  had  passed  through  it 
and  lived,  its  shadow  still  fell  athwart  Abraham  Lincoln.  Idle 
young  Baltimoreans  of  Confederate  sympathies,  with  convivial 
tastes  and  sometimes  with  empty  pockets— ripe  for  frolic  or  for 
gaudy  scheme— were  often  in  the  capital,  where  so  much  was  to  be 
heard  and  seen.  Paroled  Confederates  found  homes  in  Baltimore's 
rooming-houses.  To  and  fro  between  Washington  and  Baltimore, 
or  through  Washington  between  Baltimore  and  Richmond, 
drifted  Confederate  runners,  mail  carriers,  agents,  and  spies.  From 
the   second-floor  windows  of   the   Executive    Mansion,    Lincoln 


50  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

looked  daily  toward  the  heights  across  the  Potomac.  Beyond  them 
was  the  enemy  in  the  field.  But  on  the  Potomac's  hither  side,  about 
his  feet  and  at  his  back,  were  other  enemies.  He  was  a  stranger  in 
a  strange  land, 

Remembering  the  prairies  and  the  corn. 


Three        •  THE   SAFEGUARDING   OF    LINCOLN 


DRIVEN  down  the  wide  blankness  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue, 
with  its  fringe  of  ailanthus  trees  in  whitewashed  wooden  boxes, 
Lincoln  was  delivered  at  the  unadorned  six-storied  pile  of  Wil- 
lard's  ("Water  and  gas  in  each  room").  When  he  had  served  a 
term  as  representative,  back  in  Polk's  administration,  he  had 
lodged  in  a  boarding-house  on  the  Hill.  It  was  then  that  he  break- 
fasted with  Webster,  opposed  the  Mexican  War,  introduced  his 
bill  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The 
city  had  been  slowly  growing  since  then  but  was  little  improved. 

Despite  a  most  liberal  provision  of  cuspidors,  the  marbles  of 
the  Capitol  were  freckled  with  tobacco  juice.  Cheek  by  jowl  with 
the  dingy  home  of  the  State  Department  stood  the  Presidential 
stables.  The  City  Hall,  architecturally  pleasing,  was  known  as  "the 
Washington  Slave-Pen";  for  within  sat  three  commissioners  issuing 
orders  to  a  United  States  marshal  and  a  corps  of  deputies  whose 
chief  business  was  the  catching  of  runaway  slaves  at  $50  a  head. 
While  the  physicist  Henry,  the  hydrographer  Maury,  and  the 
archivist  Force  lent  to  the  town  the  distinction  of  their  unselfish 
labors,  spoilsmen  wrangled  like  hawks  over  patronage. 

"Society"  there  was,  to  be  sure— the  society  of  Mrs.  Clay- 
Clopton's  nostalgic  reminiscences,  "A  Belle  of  the  Fifties."  Her 
first  husband  was  Senator  Clement  C.  Clay  of  Alabama,  and  she 
always  looked  back  regretfully  to  that  proud  era  when  a  lady 
simply  had  to  have  a  pier  glass  for  the  right  adjustment  of  hoop- 
skirts.  Her  coterie,  largely  Southern  in  tone,  agreed  heartily  that 
a  week  of  Washington  was  better  than  a  year  of  New  York.  During 
sessions  of  Congress  a  continual  exchange  of  hospitalities  pre- 

51 


1  iRRAffV 
UNIVERSIHOFIU-WO* 


52  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

vailed.  Carriages  steered  their  uncertain  courses  through  hazard- 
ous streets  to  receptions,  balls,  and  elaborate  dinners  whose  com- 
monplaces were  terrapin,  reed  birds,  and  canvasbacks.  At  its  best 
this  society  had  often  an  easy  unaffectedness  quite  disarming;  but 
the  same  society  had  approved  the  code  duello,  condoned  gross 
drunkenness,  and  sanctioned  brutality.  No  doubt  incursions  from 
Baltimore  brought  undesirables  "with  actual  revolvers  and  un- 
questionable slung-shot."  But  side  by  side  with  its  liveried  reti- 
nues, its  imported  elegances,  its  superficial  chivalry,  life  in  Wash- 
ington City  itself  had  an  endemic  strain  of  barbarism  that,  as  one 
editor  put  it,  would  not  have  been  out  of  place  in  the  camp  of 
Alaric  or  of  Attila. 

To  Mrs.  Clay-Clopton's  inner  set  belonged  Representative 
Preston  Brooks  of  South  Carolina.  On  May  22nd,  1856,  while 
Charles  Sumner  was  working  at  his  desk  in  the  Senate  chamber, 
Brooks  had  approached  him  unannounced  and  repeatedly  struck 
him  across  head  and  shoulders  with  a  heavy  cane.  Sumner,  unable 
to  defend  himself  and  wrenching  the  desk  loose  from  the  floor  in 
his  efforts  to  rise,  was  so  injured  that  he  did  not  return  to  the 
Senate  until  i860.  Laurence  M.  Keitt,  another  representative  from 
South  Carolina,  rushed  down  the  aisle  and  with  curses  warned 
onlookers  to  "let  them  alone."  Spinal  trouble  delayed  Sumner's 
recovery.  Though  terming  this  dastardly  assault  "a  personal  affair" 
—he  had  been  provoked,  he  explained,  by  Sumner's  "Crime 
against  Kansas"  speech— Brooks  chose  to  make  public  vaunt  of  it 
before  the  House  in  what  must  be  one  of  the  worst  apologias  on 
record.  "I  went  to  work  very  deliberately,"  he  declared  with  relish. 
Bob  Toombs  of  Georgia,  an  approving  witness,  said  of  the  blows: 
"They  were  hard  licks  and  very  effective." 

Henry  Wilson,  Sumner's  colleague,  unsparingly  denounced 
Brooks,  and  Brooks  sent  Wilson  a  challenge.  Wilson,  saying  that 
dueling  was  both  illegal  and  uncivilized,  refused  to  meet  him. 
Brooks,  having  resigned  from  the  House,  was  almost  unanimously 
re-elected.  It  was  credibly  reported  that,  at  Charleston,  Louis  Wig- 
fall  of  Texas  "in  the  plenitude  of  his  exaltation  alluded  to  the 
assault  on  Senator  Sumner  as  a  type  of  the  manner  in  which  South- 
erners would  deal  with  the  Northerners  generally." 

This  was  not  Washington's  first  casualty  of  the  kind.  A  few 


From  the   Oldroyd  Collection,  Lincoln  Museum,    Washington 


LINCOLN  "IN  DISGUISE"  IS  PICTURED  BY  CARTOONISTS  OF  THE 

DAY 

At  the  left  he  is  shown  in  feminine  attire;  at  the  right,  in  plaid  and  Scotch 

bonnet 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  53 

months  before,  Albert  C.  Rust,  Democratic  representative  from 
Arkansas  and  powerful  six-footer,  had  twice  attacked  Horace 
Greeley  on  the  street.  He  objected  to  something  Greeley  had  said 
in  the  Tribune  about  a  motion  of  Rust's  in  the  House.  In  the 
first  instance  he  rained  blows  with  his  fists  upon  the  Pickwickian 
head  of  the  unwary  editor,  whose  hands  happened  at  the  moment 
to  be  thrust  deeply  into  the  pockets  of  his  celebrated  overcoat.  In 
the  second,  near  the  National  Hotel,  the  Arkansan  aimed  at  Horace 
a  violent  stroke  with  a  walking  stick.  Surprisingly,  Greeley's  up- 
raised arm  was  not  shattered  but  the  stick  was  broken.  Rust  was 
led  away  by  friends.  Greeley  spent  a  day  or  two  in  bed.1 
•  Rowdyism  in  Washington  could  thus  at  least  plead  legislative 
precedent.  The  pro-slavery  mood  was  sultry  and  unrestrained.  At 
breakfast  in  the  bare,  uncarpeted  dining-hall  of  Willard's,  that 
morning  of  Lincoln's  arrival,  there  was  probably  table  talk  about 
the  attack  on  Representative  Charles  H.  Van  Wyck,  which  had  be- 
come known  just  the  day  preceding.  Lincoln  breakfasted  in  pri- 
vate, but  he  must  later  have  learned  the  facts.  About  midnight  of 
February  21st,  Van  Wyck,  who  was  from  the  Tenth  District  of 
New  York  and  stanchly  anti-slavery,  was  passing  the  north  wing 
of  the  Capitol  when  three  men  set  upon  him.  His  left  hand  was 
gashed  by  a  knife  and  he  was  knocked  down,  but  he  succeeded  in 
getting  free.  His  assailants  were  unknown.  Through  unfriendly 
New  York,  where  eyes  were  cool  and  cheers  were  sparse;  through 
Baltimore,  where  the  mob's  will  was  frankly  hostile,  Lincoln  had 
come  to  his  astonishing  capital.  Living,  he  was  never  to  be  out  of 
it  for  long. 

For  Inaugural  Day  a  bright  sun  shone.  A  brisk  March  wind 
filled  the  air  with  Washington  dust  that  lately  had  been  Washing- 
ton mud.  Past,  for  the  time  being,  was  the  dread  of  some  more  or 
less  organized  undertaking,  some  coup  de  main,  to  seize  the  city. 
Seward  thought  the  truth  was  that  although  Washington  was  not 
prepared  for  defense,  neither  was  the  South  as  yet  prepared  for 
concerted  aggression  or  willing  to  take  the  risk.  But  there  re- 
mained the  possibility  of  assassination— of  consequent  panic  and 
stampede  and  riot. 

1  During  the  war,  Rust  became  a  Confederate  brigadier. 


54  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

As  custom  was,  a  platform  had  been  built  out  from  the  Capi- 
tol's main  portico.  On  this  rough  scaffolding  Lincoln  was  to  take 
the  oath  of  office  and  deliver  his  eagerly  awaited  inaugural  ad- 
dress. Word  had  come  to  Scott's  headquarters  during  the  night 
that  in  the  midst  of  the  exercises  an  attempt  would  be  made  to 
blow  up  the  platform.  By  daylight,  Colonel  Stone  had  seen  to  it 
that  an  ample  guard  was  stationed  below,  and  from  that  side  no 
access  was  possible. 

When  Buchanan  and  Lincoln  rode  together  up  Pennsylvania 
Avenue,  the  carriage  at  times  was  almost  hidden  from  the  view  of 
those  on  the  sidewalks.  In  front  of  it  marched  a  detachment  of 
sappers  and  miners— regulars  from  West  Point;  on  either  side  rode 
double  files  of  District  volunteer  cavalry;  District  infantry  fol- 
lowed. One  trained  observer  believed  that  "owing  to  the  dense- 
ness  of  the  military  enclosure"  a  shot  could  not  have  reached 
Lincoln.2  From  the  point  at  which  the  carriage  stopped,  a  tempo- 
rary wooden  corridor  led  to  the  northern  door  of  the  Capitol. 
Armed  men  in  civilian  clothes  were  scattered  amons;  the  crowd 
on  the  plaza  and  posted  on  roofs  of  adjacent  buildings.  Light 
artillery  was  placed  where  it  could  rake  the  streets.  At  a  near-by 
corner  Scott  watched  from  a  coupe— with  his  weight,  the  mounting 
of  a  horse  was  an  effort. 

Lincoln  looked  around  for  a  spot  where  he  might  safely  deposit 
his  brand-new  tall  hat,  and  Douglas  thereupon  took  charge  of  it 
and  held  it.  The  address  was  given  quietly,  with  few  gestures;  but, 
according  to  the  Intelligencer,  Lincoln's  clear,  distinct  voice  was 
readily  audible  to  the  thousands  before  him.  Behind  him,  with 
folded  arms,  Wigfall  of  Texas  leaned  insolently  in  the  entrance. 

"In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in 
mine/'  concluded  the  speaker,  "is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil 
war.  The  Government  will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no  con- 
flict without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors.  You  have  no  oath 
registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  Government,  while  /  shall 
have  the  most  solemn  one  to  'preserve,  protect,  and  defend  it.' 

"I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must 
not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not 
break  our  bonds  of  affection.   The   mystic   chords  of  memory, 

2  Gobright,  "Recollections  of  Men  and  Things";  p.  287. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  55 

stretching  from  every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living 
heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be, 
by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

John  Hay's  friends,  when  they  read  those  words  of  "haunting 
beauty,"  fancied  that  he,  the  budding  poet,  must  have  written 
them.  At  administering  the  oath,  Chief  Justice  Taney,  then  within 
a  week  of  his  eighty-fourth  birthday,  was  perceptibly  moved  by 
the  grave  tension  of  the  scene. 

Nothing  untoward  marred  the  day.  But  that  very  morning  Sec- 
retary Holt  had  received  from  Major  Anderson  extraordinary 
dispatches  saying  that  Fort  Sumter  could  not  be  held  without  at 
least  20,000  men  to  take  the  batteries  South  Carolina  had  built. 
Within  six  weeks,  war  would  begin.  From  the  neighborhood  of 
the  President's  Park  and  from  the  "West  End,"  from  spacious 
town  houses  and  their  walled  gardens,  disunion  society  already 
had  begun  to  flit.  At  the  Inauguration  Ball  young  Henry  Adams, 
feeling  youthfully  superior  after  his  Wanderjahre,  saw  the  new 
President,  the  new  head  of  Washington's  official  society— a  tall 
man  with  a  "ploughed"  face  and  not  wholly  at  ease  in  white 
gloves,  the  fastidious  Henry  thought— a  man  who  did  not  dance 
and  who  seemed  preoccupied. 

Preoccupied— Lincoln  may  well  have  been  that.  He  knew  he 
was  surrounded  by  civilians  who  sympathized  with  disunion,  by 
officers  he  could  not  trust.  He  knew  that  under  Howell  Cobb's 
direction  the  national  credit  had  been  sadly  impaired;  that  on 
one  side  lay  the  slave  state  of  Virginia,  on  the  other  the  slave 
states  of  Delaware  and  Maryland;  that  the  old  order  was  crum- 
bling before  his  eyes.  Senator  Benjamin  of  Louisiana  had  shown 
his  respect  for  the  chief  magistracy  by  tastefully  describing  Bu- 
chanan as  "a  senile  executive  under  the  sinister  influence  of 
insane  counsels."  But  compared  with  the  volcanic  stream  of 
malignity  that  was  beginning  to  be  outpoured  upon  Buchanan's 
successor,  this  was  as  Hyperion  to  a  satyr. 

From  the  very  start,  Lincoln  was  threatened  by  enemies,  cau- 
tioned by  friends.  His  mail,  said  his  secretaries,  "was  infested  with 
brutal  and  vulgar  menace,  mostly  anonymous,"  and  heavy  with  the 
admonitions  of  excited  well-wishers.  It  was  rumored  in  March 


56  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

that  one  Ben  McCullough,  secessionist  desperado,  had  collected 
five  hundred  adventurers  at  Richmond  for  some  enterprise  of 
pith  and  moment— it  might  be  to  abduct  the  President  and  his 
entire  Cabinet. 

Stanton  wrote  from  Washington  to  Buchanan  in  retirement  at 
Lancaster: 

The  yard  in  front  of  the  War  Office  is  crowded  with  the  District 
Militia,  who  are  being  mustered  into  service.  The  feeling  of  loyalty  to 
the  Government  has  greatly  diminished  in  the  city.  Many  persons  who 
would  have  supported  the  Government  under  your  administration  re- 
fuse to  be  enrolled.  Many  who  were  enrolled  have  withdrawn,  and 
refuse  to  take  the  oath.  [April  nth] 

A  common  impression,  said  Stanton,  was  that  inside  of  thirty  days 
Jefferson  Davis  would  be  in  the  city.3 

On  April  12th  Fort  Sumter  was  fired  on;  on  the  14th  its  com- 
mander marched  out  with  the  honors  of  war;  on  the  15th  Lincoln 
issued  a  call  for  75,000  volunteers.  What  had  been  spoken  in  dark- 
ness was  forthwith  heard  in  the  light;  for  Leroy  P.  Walker,  Con- 
federate Secretary  of  War,  gave  notice  to  the  universe  that  by  May 
Day  the  flag  of  the  Confederacy  would  float  above  the  Capitol. 

The  first  entry  in  John  Hay's  Washington  diary— that  for  April 
18th— captures  for  us  the  atmosphere  of  foreboding  that  rested  on 
the  city.  That  night  the  novelist  Mrs.  Ann  S.  Stephens  brought  to 
the  Executive  Mansion  actress  Jean  M.  Davenport,  recently  made 
Mrs.  Col.  Frederick  W.  Lander.  The  ladies  wished  to  see  the  Presi- 
dent on  a  matter  connected  with  his  personal  safety;  but  as  the 
President  had  gone  to  bed,  Hay  took  their  message— delighted,  he 
says,  at  this  chance  interview  with  one  whom  he  had  admired  as 
Julia,  Medea,  and  Mona  Lisa.  It  appeared  that  a  young  Virginian 
of  Mrs.  Lander's  acquaintance  had  been  in  the  city  to  buy  a  sad- 
dle; and,  meeting  her,  had  indiscreetly  revealed  that  within  forty- 
eight  hours  he  and  a  half-dozen  other  bloods— among  them  a  dare- 
devil from  Richmond  named  Ficklin— would  perform  a  deed  with 
which  the  world  would  resound.  From  this,  and  from  other  things 
he  let  fall,  Mrs.  Lander  had  deduced  that  the  intent  was  to  kill  or 
abduct  Lincoln. 

"They  went  away,"  ended  Hay,  "and  I  went  to  the  bedside  of 

3  G.  T.  Curtis,  "Life  of  James  Buchanan";  vol.  ii,  pp.  540,  542. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  57 

the  Chief  couche.  I  told  him  the  yarn.  He  quietly  grinned/'  Mrs. 
Lincoln's  fears  were  allayed  by  "some  very  dexterous  lying." 

For  several  days  after  the  Baltimore  riot  of  April  19th,  and 
before  communications  were  reopened,  a  minor  panic  existed.  If 
invaders  from  Maryland  and  Virginia  should  now  join  forces, 
what  would  save  the  city?  Many  families  packed  up  their  house- 
hold goods.  Lincoln's  elemental  patience  was  quite  misunder- 
stood. It  was  said  that  he  was  shallow,  apathetic,  incompetent; 
that  he  ought  to  be  superseded.  Yet,  looking  for  the  ships  that 
were  to  bring  expected  troops,  he  scanned  the  river  from  his  office 
window  and— supposing  himself  to  be  alone— exclaimed,  "Why 
don't  they  come?  Why  don't  they  come?"  Brought  by  water  to 
Annapolis  from  Philadelphia  or  Perryville,  regiments  soon 
marched  in,  and  the  situation  was  relieved. 

One  night  every  member  of  the  family  was  taken  sick.  Hurry 
calls  were  sent  out  for  doctors,  and  for  a  time  there  were  head- 
shakings  and  dark  whispers  of  "Poison!"— as  there  had  been  in  the 
case  of  Harrison  in  1841  and  of  Taylor  in  1850.  But  eventually 
the  diagnosis  was  overindulgence  in  Potomac  shad,  a  dish  to 
which  inlanders  had  not  acquired  full  immunity.4  If  not  one 
alarum,  it  was  another.  A  gentleman  would  bring  tidings  that  on 
the  hills  of  Arlington  had  been  planted  a  mortar  battery  com- 
manding the  town;  or  suspicious-looking  craft  would  be  sighted 
on  mischievous  errands.  Many  Southerners  gave  out  that  Lincoln, 
the  temperance  advocate,  was  consoling  himself  amid  his  miseries 
by  drinking  strong  liquor. 

Of  the  earlier  written  threats  and  warnings,  most  were  on  the 
face  of  them  deemed  unworthy  of  attention.  If  inquiry  seemed  to 
be  indicated,  it  was  carefully  made  by  Nicolay  and  the  War  De- 
partment. But  apparently  nothing  tangible  was  ever  turned  up— 
nothing  sufficiently  definite  to  afford  ground  for  action.  Again 
and  again  intelligence  of  a  most  specific  character  led  nowhere 
save  to  confusion.  "During  my  time,  there  were  no  substantial 
proofs  of  plots  against  the  person  of  Lincoln,"  is  the  statement  of 
Maj.  William  E.  Doster,  provost  marshal  of  the  military  district 

4  Article  by  Mrs.  E.  T.  G.  Brown  in  Journal  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society, 
Oct.  1926-Jan.  1927    (vol.  xix,  nos.  3-4). 


58  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

of  Washington  from  March  1862  to  March  1863,  while  Gen. 
James  S.  Wadsworth  was  military  governor.  Doster  once  received 
from  Ohio  a  letter  claiming  that  the  man  who  was  to  have  killed 
Lincoln  in  Baltimore  was  then  living  in  that  state,  and  offering  on 
certain  terms  to  reveal  his  identity.  After  a  conference  with  "Major 
Allen,  head  of  my  detective  bureau,"  Doster  returned  the  letter 
and  nothing  more  was  heard.  Like  many  other  army  officers,  Dos- 
ter seems  to  have  been  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  Major  Allen  and 
Allan  Pinkerton  were  one  and  the  same  person.5 

Major  Doster  has  told  us  that  while  he  was  provost  marshal  of 
the  Washington  military  district  he  was  expected  to  preserve  order 
in  Washington  City  and  Georgetown;  receive  and  hold  for  ex- 
change all  prisoners  of  war  and  state;  control  passes  to  all  persons 
or  goods  leaving  or  entering;  supervise  invoices;  take  care  of  all 
fugitive  Negroes;  prevent  blockade-running;  regulate  all  places 
of  amusement  and  all  sales  of  liquor;  guard  the  person  of  the 
President  (when  in  public);  and  report  in  person  daily  to  Secre- 
tary Stanton  or  Assistant  Secretary  Watson.  This  was  a  consider- 
able program  for  one  man.  Even  with  a  mixed  brigade  at  his 
disposal,  it  took  a  bit  of  doing;  and  after  a  year  Doster  gladly  got 
leave  to  rejoin  his  regiment  in  the  field. 

"Soon  after  I  was  nominated  at  Chicago,"  said  Lincoln  to  the 
artist  Frank  Carpenter  in  March  1864,  "I  began  to  receive  letters 
threatening  my  life.  The  first  one  or  two  made  me  a  little  uncom- 
fortable, but  I  came  at  length  to  look  for  a  regular  instalment  of 
this  kind  of  correspondence  in  every  week's  mail,  and  up  to  in- 
auguration day  I  was  in  constant  receipt  of  such  letters.  It  is  no 
uncommon  thing  to  receive  them  now;  but  they  have  ceased  to 
give  me  any  apprehension." 

Carpenter  wondered  at  this.  "Oh,"  answered  Lincoln,  with  his 
peculiar  inflection,  "there  is  nothing  like  getting  used  to  things!" 

Maj.  Gen.  Edward  D.  Townsend,  whose  duties  as  assistant 
adjutant-general  brought  him  frequently  into  contact  with  Lin- 
coln, attested  that  "a  large  number  of  communications  were  re- 
ceived from  several  Northern  States,  Canada,  Kentucky,  and  other 
parts  of  the  South,  and  from  Europe,  especially  from  Germany, 

5  "Lincoln  and  Episodes  of  the  Civil  War";  p.  29. 

6  "Six  Months  in  the  White  House";  pp.  62-63. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  59 

some  of  them  anonymous,  others  signed  with  a  name.  All  con- 
curred in  the  declaration  that  a  plot  existed  to  assassinate  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  and  General  Scott."  Without  Scott's  knowledge, 
sentries  were  posted  around  his  house  at  night.7 

"On  one  occasion,"  wrote  Col.  L.  C.  Baker,  ubiquitous  head  of 
the  National  Detective  Bureau,  "I  carried  to  Mr.  Lincoln  two 
anonymous  communications,  in  which  he  was  threatened  with 
assassination.  In  a  laughing,  joking  manner,  he  remarked,  'Well, 
Baker,  what  do  they  want  to  kill  me  for?  If  they  kill  me,  they  will 
run  the  risk  of  getting  a  worse  man.'  "  This,  with  variations,  was 
his  pet  response.  He  had  been  reluctant  to  believe  that  his  life 
might  be  endangered  in  Baltimore.  "He  had  himself,"  wrote  his 
secretaries,  "so  sane  a  mind,  and  a  heart  so  kindly  even  to  his  ene- 
mies, that  it  was  hard  for  him  to  believe  in  a  political  hatred  so 
deadly  as  to  lead  to  murder."  8 

During  the  first  half  of  1862,  John  Bigelow,  United  States 
consul-general  at  Paris,  notified  Secretary  Seward  that  even  at  that 
distance  reports  had  reached  him  of  plots  then  maturing  "against 
the  lives  of  leading  loyal  statesmen  in  different  cities  of  our  re- 
public." Seward,  under  date  of  July  15th,  1862,  replied  in  part 
thus: 

There  is  no  doubt  that  from  a  period  anterior  to  the  breaking  out 
of  the  insurrection,  plots  and  conspiracies  for  purposes  of  assassination 
have  been  frequently  formed  and  organized.  And  it  is  not  unlikely  that 
such  an  one  as  has  been  reported  to  you  is  now  in  agitation  among  the 
insurgents.  If  it  be  so,  it  need  furnish  no  grounds  for  anxiety.  Assassina- 
tion is  not  an  American  practice  or  habit,  and  one  so  vicious  and  so 
desperate  cannot  be  engrafted  into  our  political  system. 

This  conviction  of  mine  has  steadily  gained  strength  since  the  Civil 
War  began.  Every  day's  experience  confirms  it.  The  President,  during 
the  heated  season,  occupies  a  country  house  near  the  Soldiers'  Home, 
two  or  three  miles  from  the  city.  He  goes  to  and  fro  from  that  place  on 
horseback,  night  and  morning,  unguarded.  I  go  there  unattended  at 
all  hours,  by  daylight  and  moonlight,  by  starlight  and  without  any 
light."  .  .  ,9 

This  was  a  rather  different  Seward  from  the  one  who  had  rushed 

'"Anecdotes  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States";  p.  23. 

8  "History  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service";  p.  475.  Nicolay  and  Hay;  vol.  x, 
pp.  286-287. 

9  Bigelow,  "Retrospections  of  an  Active  Life";  vol.  ii,  pp.  547-548. 


60  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

that  urgent  warning  to  Lincoln  at  Philadelphia.  With  the  inaugu- 
ration triumphantly  over,  he  had  by  degrees  been  lulled  into  a 
fancied  security.  Time  would  lend  a  bitter  import  to  these  words 
—and  to  those  other  words  of  his,  once  spoken  to  John  Hay:  "You 
learn  something  of  men  and  things,  but  never  until  too  late  to 
use  it." 

It  has  been  said  that  in  no  other  modern  city,  save  Paris  dur- 
ing the  Terror,  has  so  strange  a  multitude  been  gathered  as  that 
which  filled  Washington  in  those  harried  years  of  the  Civil  War. 
By  this  multitude  Lincoln  hourly  was  surrounded.  To  it  he  was 
bent  upon  making  himself  approachable.  He  felt  that  he  was  at- 
torney for  the  people;  that  he  belonged  to  them— all  of  them. 
With  a  weary  smile  he  said  to  Henry  Wilson,  "They  don't  want 
much;  they  get  but  little,  and  I  must  see  them." 

In  the  beginning,  as  efforts  were  made  toward  settling  down  to 
the  routine  of  war,  mounted  guards  were  stationed  at  the  carriage 
gates  of  the  President's  House,  and  infantry  guards  at  the  foot 
gates.  There  was  guard-mounting  in  military  style,  and  William 
O.  Stoddard  of  the  secretarial  force  considered  the  residence  "a 
pretty  carefully  guarded  headquarters."  But  Lincoln  was  bothered 
by  this  arrangement  and  got  rid  of  it.  It  would  never  do,  he  said, 
for  a  President  to  have  sentries  with  drawn  sabers  at  his  door— as 
if  he  were  assuming  to  be  an  emperor. 

At  the  main  entrance  a  doorkeeper  was  on  duty.  Well  known 
to  Washington  in  this  capacity  was  the  courteous  and  witty  Ed- 
ward McManus,  who  had  been  a  fixture  since  President  Taylor's 
day.  On  the  second  floor  was  an  usher— the  Prussian  Louis  Burg- 
dorf,  or  some  other;  for  executive  business  was  transacted  in  the 
east  wing  of  that  floor.  In  the  southeast  corner  was  the  secretaries' 
office;  next  along  the  corridor,  toward  the  west,  was  the  office  of 
the  President,  and  beyond  that  the  reception  room.  This  plan— if 
plan  it  could  be  called— was  strategically  unsound,  for  the  secre- 
taries were  not  so  placed  that  they  could  interpose  themselves 
between  the  President  and  his  visitors.  But  perhaps  it  made  small 
difference,  for,  as  Hay  wrote,  although  those  immediately  about 
Lincoln  "strove  ...  to  erect  barriers  to  defend  him  against  con- 
stant interruption,  ...  he  was  always  the  first  to  break  them  down." 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  61 

The  result  was  that,  in  dealing  with  callers,  only  the  most  primi- 
tive system  obtained.  Lunatics  succeeded  in  getting  to  the  doors 
of  the  executive  offices  and  occasionally  into  Lincoln's  very  pres- 
ence. He  did  not  appear  to  mind  greatly.  He  liked  to  talk  with 
people;  and,  says  Thayer,  "he  could  usually  get  something,  if  it 
were  only  a  quaint  phrase,  even  from  cranks."  Yet  all  the  while 
he  was  conscious  that  he  sometimes  might  be  running  a  risk. 

In  the  first  months,  Hay  seems  to  have  taken  as  one  of  his 
special  concerns  the  inspection  of  the  Executive  Mansion  and  the 
safekeeping  of  the  President  while  in  it.  The  house  became  for  a 
time  a  barracks,  with  Governor  Jim  Lane's  "Frontier  Guards" 
bunking  in  the  East  Room.  Hay  has  left  us  in  his  diary  a  little 
genre-piece  of  himself  patrolling  the  house  at  midnight,  while 
Major  Hunter  slept  placidly  on  the  floor  and  the  watch— young, 
careless,  and  "too  good  to  be  food  for  gunpowder"— loafed  by  the 
furnace  in  the  basement.  A  member  of  General  Halleck's  staff, 
Col.  Charles  Halpine  (better  known  by  his  pen  name  Miles 
O'Reilly)  was  struck  by  Lincoln's  accessibility.  "I  have  many  times 
entered  the  mansion,"  wrote  Halpine,  "and  walked  up  to  the 
rooms  of  the  two  private  secretaries,  as  late  as  nine  or  ten  o'clock 
at  night,  without  seeing  or  being  challenged  by  a  single  soul. 
There  were,  indeed,  two  attendants— one  for  the  outer  door,  and 
the  other  for  the  door  of  the  official  chambers;  but  these— think- 
ing, I  suppose,  that  none  would  call  after  office  hours  save  persons 
who  were  personally  acquainted,  or  had  the  right  of  official  entry 
—were,  not  infrequently,  somewhat  remiss  in  their  duties." 

The  Colonel  essayed  to  reason  with  Lincoln,  "who  heard  me 
through  with  a  smile,  his  hands  locked  across  his  knees,  his  body 
rocking  back  and  forth— the  common  indication  that  he  was 
amused." 

"Now  as  to  political  assassination,"  he  said,  "do  you  think  the  Rich- 
mond people  would  like  to  have  Hannibal  Hamlin  here  any  better 
than  myself?  In  that  one  alternative,  I  have  an  insurance  on  my  life 
worth  half  the  prairie  land  of  Illinois.  And  beside," — this  more  gravely, 
— "if  there  were  such  a  plot,  and  they  wanted  to  get  at  me,  no  vigilance 
could  keep  them  out.  We  are  so  mixed  up  in  our  affairs,  that — no  mat- 
ter what  the  system  established — a  conspiracy  to  assassinate,  if  such 
there  were,  could  easily  obtain  a  pass  to  see  me  for  any  one  or  more  of 
its  instruments. 


62  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

"To  betray  fear  of  this,  by  placing  guards  or  so  forth,  would  only  be 
to  put  the  idea  into  their  heads,  and  perhaps  lead  to  the  very  result 
it  was  intended  to  prevent.  As  to  the  crazy  folks,  Major,  why  I  must 
only  take  my  chances, — the  worst  crazy  people  at  present,  I  fear,  being 
some  of  my  own  too  zealous  adherents.  That  there  may  be  such  dangers 
as  you  and  many  others  have  suggested  to  me,  is  quite  possible;  but  I 
guess  it  wouldn't  improve  things  any  to  publish  that  we  were  afraid  of 
them  in  advance."  10 

There  was  a  bell  rope  for  calling  the  secretaries,  but  often  the 
President  would  go  to  them  instead.  At  luncheon  time  he  had 
"literally  to  run  the  gantlet"  through  the  crowds  as  he  made  his 
way  to  the  private  rooms  of  the  family  in  the  west  wing.  When  no 
engagement  interfered,  he  usually  spent  the  evening  in  his  office. 
At  the  witching  hour  he  would  roam  the  halls— now  and  then  in 
his  nightshirt,  short  for  his  long  shanks. 

General  Wadsworth,  military  governor  and  Major  Doster's  of- 
ficial superior,  detailed  a  body  of  cavalry  to  accompany  Lincoln 
to  and  from  the  Soldiers'  Home11  at  the  north  of  the  city.  On  the 
grounds  of  the  Home,  in  a  beautiful  grove,  a  brick  dwelling  had 
been  set  apart  as  the  President's  summer  quarters.  It  was  higher 
and  cooler  there  than  in  town,  and  he  could  get  a  comfortable 
night's  rest.  He  would  travel  either  on  horseback  or  in  his  every- 
day carriage,  which  was  hardly  better  than  the  average  Washing- 
ton hack.  By  eight  in  the  morning  he  would  be  back  at  his  desk. 
The  escort— dubbed  by  "secesh"  ladies  the  "Janissaries"— had  been 
detailed  against  his  wish  and  he  protested  about  it  to  General 
Halleck,  then  commander-in-chief.  Spurs  and  sabers,  he  com- 
plained, made  so  much  noise  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  he,  when 
they  rode  together,  couldn't  hear  themselves  talk.  He  said  many 
of  the  men  appeared  to  be  raw  recruits;  and  he  was  more  afraid 
of  the  accidental  discharge  of  their  revolvers  or  carbines  than  he 
was  of  any  deliberate  attempt  to  abduct  or  kill  him.  The  story  was 
that  he  delighted  in  having  the  coachman,  Francis  Burke,  sud- 
denly put  the  carriage  horses  to  the  top  of  their  speed  and  leave 
the  "Janissaries"  in  the  rear. 

In  the  summer  of  1863  this  detachment  was  replaced  by  the 

10  Carpenter,  "Six  Months  in  the  White  House";  pp.  66-67.  Vice-President  Hamlin 
was  a  strong  anti-slavery  man. 

11  This  was  for  veterans  of  the  regular  army. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  63 

Union  Light  Guard,  an  independent  company  organized,  under 
permit  of  the  War  Department,  by  Governor  Tod  of  Ohio.  This 
picked  troop  of  one  hundred  Ohioans— most  of  whom  had  seen 
service,  some  as  commissioned  officers— was  mounted  entirely  on 
fine  black  horses.  Its  duties  were  to  guard  the  carriage  gates  of 
the  Executive  Mansion  and  to  act  as  escort  to  the  President  when- 
ever he  went  out  driving  or  on  horseback.  Two  mounted  guards, 
relieved  at  intervals,  were  stationed  at  each  of  the  gateways.  They 
were  under  the  immediate  command  of  a  noncommissioned  offi- 
cer who  stood  on  post  by  the  front  door  while  his  mount  was  tied 
at  the  portico.  Camped  on  the  south  lawn  was  an  infantry  company 
of  Pennsylvania  "bucktails,"  so  named  from  the  bucktails  they 
wore  in  their  hats.  These  men  guarded  the  ends  and  southern 
front  of  the  building. 

Out  at  the  Soldiers'  Home  the  Union  Light  Guard  had  tents  in 
the  grove.  It  was  a  pleasant  life,  and  the  duties  were  easy;  but  in 
the  summer  of  1864  some  of  the  men  began  to  think  the  job  irk- 
some. So  once  when  the  President  strolled  down  to  the  camp  of  an 
evening,  as  he  often  did  after  dinner,  one  of  them  made  bold  to 
explain  to  him  that  they  felt  there  was  greater  need  for  them  at 
the  front.  The  President  listened  and  then  said  with  a  twinkle: 

"Well,  my  boy,  that  reminds  me  of  an  old  farmer  friend  of  mine 
in  Illinois,  who  used  to  say  he  never  could  understand  why  the 
Lord  put  the  curl  in  a  pig's  tail.  It  did  not  seem  to  him  to  be 
either  useful  or  ornamental,  but  he  guessed  the  Lord  knew  what 
he  was  doing  when  he  put  it  there.  I  do  not  myself  see  the  neces- 
sity of  having  soldiers  traipsing  around  after  me  wherever  I  go, 
but  Stanton,  who  knows  a  great  deal  more  about  such  things  than 
I  do,  seems  to  think  it  necessary,  and  he  may  be  right.  And  if  it  is 
necessary  to  have  soldiers  here,  it  might  as  well  be  you  as  someone 
else.  If  you  were  sent  to  the  front,  someone  would  have  to  come 
from  the  front  to  take  your  place." 

Then  he  added:  "It  is  a  soldier's  duty  to  obey  orders  without 
question,  and  in  doing  that  you  can  serve  your  country  as  faith- 
fully here  as  at  the  front.  And  I  reckon"— this  with  a  smile— "it  is 
not  quite  as  dangerous  here  as  it  is  there."  He  waved  his  hand  and 
walked  away.  The  men  laughed,  and  so  the  matter  ended.12 

13  North  Dakota  Historical  Quarterly,  Jan.  1927;  p.  13. 


64  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

In  late  afternoon  the  President,  frequently  accompanied  by 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  was  likely  to  take  an  hour's  drive.  He  had  been  per- 
suaded that  this  was  a  needed  airing  for  him  after  his  day's  work. 
If  he  wished  to  go  out  on  horseback,  either  to  the  Soldiers'  Home 
or  elsewhere,  he  had  no  mount  of  his  own  but  would  send  to  the 
Light  Guard's  headquarters  a  request  for  a  saddle  horse.  The  one 
commonly  selected,  known  to  the  troopers  as  Abe,  was  a  large  ani- 
mal, high-headed  and  long-legged.  Stirrup  leathers,  even  when  let 
out  to  the  last  hole,  were  always  too  short  for  Lincoln.  On  his 
"high  horse"  (as  the  men  were  used  to  saying),  he  made  a  figure 
proper  enough  when  sitting  at  rest;  but  in  motion  his  trousers 
worked  upward  for  lack  of  straps,  his  arms  flapped,  his  feet  turned 
outward.  Nevertheless,  many  a  competent  judge  in  that  equestrian 
town  thought  that  in  the  management  of  his  steed  the  President 
could  have  held  his  own  with  the  best  riders. 

Lincoln  was  a  pretty  difficult  man  to  regulate.  After  reaching 
the  Soldiers'  Home  at  night  he  would  occasionally  go  back  to  the 
city  without  escort  along  the  lonely  road— uneasy  for  news  or  sum- 
moned, perhaps,  as  he  was  to  a  council  after  Chattanooga,  when 
Hay  hurried  out  through  the  September  moonlight  to  fetch  him. 
Frank  Carpenter  and  journalist  Noah  Brooks  are  two  who  tell  of 
long  walks  with  him  at  late  hours  through  dark  Washington 
streets,  with  no  attendant  or  other  companion  whatever. 

Gen.  Schuyler  Hamilton  said  that  Lincoln  during  his  first 
months  in  office  liked  to  set  out  as  early  as  four  o'clock  for  a  morn- 
ing stroll.  In  slouched  hat,  soiled  linen  duster,  and  trousers  "of 
frontier  cut,"  he  would  visit  horse  corrals,  hospitals,  and  camps, 
and  would  talk  with  the  rank  and  file  as  if  he,  too,  thought  of 
enlisting.  Scott,  Hamilton  said,  induced  Lincoln  to  forego  the 
duster  by  misquoting  Shakespeare  to  the  effect  that  "there  is  a 
certain  dignity  should  hedge  about  a  king."  18 

It  was  told— this  was  at  a  later  date— that  Major  Biddle,  in 
charge  of  the  provost  marshal's  mounted  patrol,  was  riding  along 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  when  he  encountered  three  horsemen— two 
officers  with  a  civilian  between  them.  As  his  duty  was,  he  asked 
for  their  passes,  but  the  three  rode  along,  taking  no  notice  of  him. 

"New  York  Tribune,  June  20,  1889;  p.  5. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  65 

"Show  your  passes  or  I'll  arrest  you,"  shouted  Biddle. 

"It's  all  right,"  said  the  civilian  quietly.  "These  officers  are 
going  with  me  across  the  river." 

"And  who  the  deuce  may  you  be?"  demanded  the  Major. 

"Oh/'  replied  the  civilian,  "I'm  Mr.  Lincoln." 

Biddle  in  telling  the  story  would  explain  that  he  had  taken  the 
President  for  a  Maryland  farmer.  But  in  Washington  were  eyes 
shrewder  than  the  Major's  and  hearts  filled  with  guile. 

Lincoln's  obliviousness  to  personal  considerations  is  further 
shown  by  the  manner  in  which  he  rushed  to  the  burning  stables 
on  the  night  of  February  10th,  1864.  It  was  between  ten  and 
eleven  o'clock  when  he  came  out  of  the  Executive  Mansion's 
front  door  and  said  to  Sergeant  Stimmel,  who  was  on  duty  there, 
"Where's  the  fire?  What's  burning?"  Stimmel  said,  "It  seems  to  be 
around  in  the  vicinity  of  the  stables."  By  that  time  the  firemen  had 
arrived.  Lincoln  started  on  a  dog  trot  with  Stimmel  after  him, 
trying  to  keep  up.  A  miscellaneous  crowd  had  assembled.  Lincoln 
asked  whether  the  horses  had  been  taken  out;  and  learning  that 
they  had  not,  he  pushed  his  way  through  and  began  to  open  one 
of  the  large  doors.  The  whole  interior  of  the  brick  building  was 
in  flames,  however,  and  none  of  the  animals  was  saved.  The  cap- 
tain of  the  Light  Guard  then  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  with  him 
a  gentleman  unknown  to  Stimmel. 

"Mr.  President,"  said  the  gentleman,  "this  is  no  place  for  you" 
—and,  slipping  his  arm  through  Lincoln's,  walked  with  him  back 
to  the  house.  Lincoln  had  been  intent  on  saving  the  ponies  that 
had  meant  so  much  to  Willie  and  Tad.  Of  personal  danger  he  had 
been  completely  forgetful.14 

Since  the  Executive  Mansion  had  no  telegraphic  connections, 
the  President's  telegrams  were  handled  by  the  War  Department. 
In  Secretary  Stanton's  office  and  the  cipher  room  of  the  military 
telegraph  Lincoln  spent  more  time  than  in  any  other  one  spot  out- 
side his  own  demesne.  There  he  kept  closely  in  touch  with  events 
at  the  front  and  sent  out  his  own  messages;  in  periods  of  crisis  he 
was  known  to  remain  all  night.  Thrice  daily— morning,  afternoon, 
and  evening— occasionally  oftener,  he  would  go  across  to  the  old 

14  North  Dakota  Historical  Quarterly,  Jan.  1927;  pp.  15-16. 


66  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

War  Department  building.  Somewhere  between  eleven  and 
twelve  at  night  was  a  time  he  favored.  A  brick  walk,  with  a  low 
wall  along  its  southern  border,  led  past  a  conservatory  where  later 
the  executive  office-building  was  located;  and  after  dark  only  a 
few  uncertain  gas-lights  broke  the  thick  shadows  of  overhanging 
trees. 

Even  in  the  worst  of  weather  the  President,  wearing  his  gray 
shawl  and  perhaps  carrying  a  disreputable  umbrella,  would  go 
alone  along  this  footpath.  But  never  was  he  allowed  to  return 
alone.  Usually  he  was  escorted  back  by  a  file  of  four  soldiers  and 
a  noncommissioned  officer.15  This  duty  was  many  times  performed 
by  Sergt.  Henry  W.  Knight,  in  charge  of  the  detail  of  the  Veteran 
Reserve  Corps  assigned  as  guard  at  the  War  Department.  Knight 
recalled  how,  about  one  o'clock  of  a  dismally  rainy  morning, 
Lincoln  said  to  the  escort,  "Don't  come  out  in  this  storm  with  me, 
boys.  I  have  my  umbrella,  and  can  get  home  safely  without  you." 

"But,  Mr.  President,"  objected  Knight,  "we  have  positive  or- 
ders from  Mr.  Stanton  not  to  allow  you  to  return  alone.  You 
know  we  dare  not  disobey  his  orders." 

"No,  I  suppose  not,"  conceded  Lincoln.  "If  Stanton  should 
learn  that  you  had  let  me  return  alone,  he  would  have  you  court- 
martialed  and  shot  inside  of  twenty-four  hours."  16 

Lincoln  enjoyed  the  drama,  gaining  refreshment  from  Shake- 
speare or  a  good  comedy  of  the  day.  His  knowledge  of  the  Shake- 
spearean plays  matched  his  knowledge  of  the  Bible.  He  liked  to 
read  aloud  or  recite  passages  from  them  to  sympathetic  listeners, 
and  was  partial  to  Richard's  speech  in  the  third  act  of  the  much- 
neglected  "Richard  II"— 

For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground, 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings:  .  .  . 
All  murder'd. 

"Richard  II,"  "Hamlet,"  and  "Macbeth"  were  among  his  prefer- 
ences, and  he  was  delighted  with  Falstaff  as  interpreted  by  James 

16  It  would  seem  that  now  and  then  he  was  accompanied  by  only  the  vigorous 
Maj.  T.  T.  Eckert,  head  of  the  telegraph  office,  or  some  other  member  of  the 
telegraph  staff. 

""Abraham  Lincoln:  Tributes  from  His  Associates";  pp.  189-190. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  67 

H.  Hackett.  To  Hackett,  who  was  a  personal  friend  and  some- 
times spent  an  evening  with  him,  he  wrote: 

For  one  of  my  age  I  have  seen  very  little  of  the  drama.  The  first 
presentation  of  Falstaff  I  ever  saw  was  yours,  here  last  winter  or  spring. 
Perhaps  the  best  compliment  I  can  pay  is  to  say  as  I  truly  can,  I  am 
very  anxious  to  see  it  again.  ...  I  think  nothing  equals  "Macbeth."  It 
is  wonderful.  .  .  .  [August  17th,  1863] 

His  study  of  the  Shakespeare  text  led  him  occasionally  to  criticize 
Hackett's  renderings.  The  cultured  James  E.  Murdoch,  another 
actor  friend,  visited  Lincoln  to  give  Shakespearean  readings  at 
the  President's  request;  and  when  John  E.  McDonough  called, 
Lincoln  discussed  "Henry  IV"  with  him. 

David  H.  Bates,  cipher  operator  and  manager  of  the  War  De- 
partment's telegraph  office,  speaks  of  how  Lincoln  read  aloud  to 
those  in  the  office  from  well-worn  pocket  editions  of  "Macbeth" 
and  "The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor."  "On  one  occasion,"  Bates 
says,  "I  was  his  only  auditor,  and  he  recited  several  passages  to  me 
with  as  much  interest  apparently  as  if  there  had  been  a  full 
house." 

For  some  time  Lincoln  was  evidently  accustomed  to  visit  thea- 
ters in  Washington  without  a  guard.  His  only  attendant,  if  he 
had  one  at  all,  would  be  Charles  Forbes,  the  carriage  footman,  who 
was  unarmed.  Usually,  though  not  invariably,  he  had  some  one 
with  him— Mrs.  Lincoln  or  Tad  or  both  of  them;  his  secretaries 
or  other  guests,  both  men  and  women.  Hay's  diary  has  such  en- 
tries as: 

The  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  went  to  see  "Fanchon."  [October 
30th,  1863] 

.  .  .  The  President  took  Swett,  Nicolay  &  me  to  Ford's  with  him  to 
see  Falstaff  in  Henry  IV.  .  .  .  Hackett  was  most  admirable.  [December 
19th,  1863] 

Leonard  Grover,  proprietor  of  Grover's  (National)  Theatre,  made 
note  of  the  presence  one  evening  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  with 
Schuyler  Colfax,  Speaker  of  the  House,  "without  guard  or  special 
attendance."  17  He  said  that  he  personally  met  the  party  at  the  curb 
and  conducted  it  to  a  box.  Lincoln  commonly  gave  notice  a  day 

17  Century  Magazine,  April  1909;  p.  946. 


68  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

ahead  and  a  box  would  be  reserved  for  him.  His  presence  was 
regarded  by  the  managers  as  a  good  advertisement  and  they  would 
gladly  have  supplied  him  with  complimentary  tickets.  He  declined 
their  offers,  however,  and  the  messenger  or  secretary  who  called 
for  the  tickets  invariably  was  instructed  to  pay. 

Once  when  W.  O.  Stoddard  and  the  President  went  to  see 
Hackett,  Stoddard  recorded  this  impression: 

There  was  a  storm  of  applause  when  he  came  in,  and  now  it  seems  as 
securely  safe  a  corner  of  the  great  Washington  City  fort  as  any  which 
could  be  selected.  He  is  incomparably  better  guarded  here,  to  any  criti- 
cal human  eye,  than  if  he  were  walking  through  the  White  House 
grounds,  or  to  and  from  the  house  of  one  of  the  secretaries,  alone,  or 
with  only  an  unarmed  attendant. 

In  this  feeling  Stoddard  was  perhaps  confirmed  by  an  incident  on 
another  occasion,  when  he  and  the  President  were  attending  a 
concert  at  Ford's.  From  the  middle  aisle  of  the  orchestra  seats  rose 
a  "harsh,  croaking  voice,"  audible  all  over  the  house:  "He  hasn't 
any  business  here!  That's  all  he  cares  for  his  poor  soldiers!"  The 
next  instant,  "poor  soldiers"  grabbed  this  individual,  hustled  him 
to  the  door,  and  tossed  him  out. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  boxes  in  the  theaters  of  that  time 
were  quite  different  from  the  loges  of  later  playhouses.  The  stage 
projected  beyond  the  proscenium  arch  in  what  was  termed  an 
apron.  Boxes  were  over  the  stage,  and  were  separated  from  the 
auditorium  proper  not  by  mere  portieres  but  by  doors  that  could 
be  locked.  They  were  therefore  more  removed  and  private  than 
is  the  case  today.  Second-tier  boxes  were  counted  more  desirable 
than  the  lower. 

It  was  finally  thought  best  to  have  a  special  guard  for  the  Presi- 
dent, and  William  B.  Webb,  chief  of  the  Metropolitan  Police, 
detailed  four  police  officers  for  duty  at  the  Executive  Mansion. 
These  men  wore  civilian  clothing,  carried  their  revolvers  con- 
cealed, and  walked  with— not  behind— the  President.  One  of  them 
was  supposed  to  attend  him  on  his  walks  to  the  War  Department 
or  elsewhere;  to  stand  guard  at  night  outside  the  private  rooms  of 
the  Lincolns;  and  when  Lincoln  went  to  the  theater,  to  protect 
him  from  the  time  he  left  the  carriage  until  he  re-entered  it.  It 
is  doubtless  true  that  the  morale  of  the  Metropolitan  Police  was 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  69 

none  too  high  and  that  individual  officers  were  of  questionable 
loyalty.  Yet  three  of  the  officers  assigned  to  this  special  duty- 
William  H.  Crook,  Alphonso  Donn,  and  Thomas  Pendel— would 
seem  to  have  ranked  well  for  intelligence,  fidelity,  and  general 
character.  Donn  and  Pendel  were  detailed  on  November  3rd, 
1864;  Crook  was  appointed  on  January  4th,  1865. 

Among  those  about  Lincoln,  at  least  two  men  became  con- 
vinced that  his  theatergoing  should  be  discouraged.  One  was 
Secretary  Stanton;  the  other,  Marshal  Lamon.  So  emphatic  grew 
Lamon  that  on  December  10th,  1864,  at  half-past  one  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  wrote  to  the  President.  His  letter  shows  that  even  after 
plain-clothes  officers  had  been  detailed,  Lincoln  did  not  always 
make  use  of  them. 

I  regret  that  you  do  not  appreciate  what  I  have  repeatedly  said  to 
you  in  regard  to  the  proper  police  arrangements  connected  with  your 
household  and  your  own  personal  safety.  You  are  in  danger.  I  have 
nothing  to  ask,  and  I  flatter  myself  that  you  will  at  least  believe  that  I 
am  honest.  If,  however,  you  have  been  impressed  differently,  do  me  and 
the  country  the  justice  to  dispose  at  once  of  all  suspected  officers,  and 
accept  my  resignation  of  the  marshalship,  which  is  hereby  tendered. 
I  will  give  you  further  reasons  which  have  impelled  me  to  this 
course.  To-night,  as  you  have  done  on  several  previous  occasions,  you 
went  unattended  to  the  theater.  When  I  say  unattended,  I  mean  that 
you  went  alone  with  Charles  Sumner  and  a  foreign  minister,  neither  of 
whom  could  defend  himself  against  an  assault  from  any  able-bodied 
woman  in  this  city.  And  you  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that  your  life  is 
sought  after,  and  will  be  taken  unless  you  and  your  friends  are  cau- 
tious; for  you  have  many  enemies  within  our  lines.  .  .  ,18 

During  the  war  all  places  of  amusement  in  Washington  were 
packed.  The  legitimate  theaters  did  a  land-office  business.  Audi- 
toriums were  large  then— either  Grover's  or  Ford's  would  accom- 
modate 2,500.  Prices  were  moderate— a  quarter  for  the  family  cir- 
cle, fifty  cents  for  the  dress  circle,  seventy-five  cents  for  the  orches- 
tra. This  meant  at  least  three  hours  of  entertainment.  Guest  stars 
included  the  best  talent  of  the  day,  and  the  stock  companies  were 
excellent.  The  promiscuous  audiences  were  cross  sections  of  the 
motley  swarm  that  was  Washington.  Desperate  men  were  often 
there— men  imbruted  by  war,  ready  to  kill;  and  weapons  were 

18  "Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln";  pp.  274-275. 


70  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

common  wear.  Of  all  this,  no  doubt,  Stanton  and  Lamon  had 
thought,  and  of  the  fact  that  Lincoln  must  walk  from  the  curb  to 
a  second-tier  box  and  back  again. 

Once,  on  the  edge  of  evening,  the  President  could  not  be  found 
and  Lamon  was  notified.  Posthaste  he  set  out  for  the  Soldiers' 
Home,  and  near  its  gateway  he  encountered  a  carriage  followed 
by  a  man  on  horseback.  "Halt!"  commanded  the  Marshal,  and 
they  halted.  Stanton  was  in  the  carriage;  the  man  on  horseback 
was  an  orderly. 

"Where  is  Mr.  Lincoln?"  the  Secretary  broke  out.  "I've  looked 
for  him  everywhere.  I  have  been  to  the  Soldiers'  Home  and  he 
isn't  there.  I'm  exceedingly  uneasy  about  him."  The  Stanton  who 
had  sneered  at  Lincoln  for  "creeping"  into  Washington  was  now 
himself  alarmed  and  showed  it  in  voice  and  manner. 

Lamon  turned  his  horse  about  and  rode  for  the  Executive 
Mansion.  There  he  found  Lincoln  walking  across  the  grounds 
toward  the  War  Department.  Where  the  President  had  been  does 
not  appear  from  Lamon's  story,  but  he  seems  to  have  been  un- 
conscious of  the  flutter  he  had  caused.  That  night  and  for  three  or 
four  nights  afterward  (according  to  Lamon)  he  slept  at  Lamon's 
house,  Mrs.  Lincoln  being  in  New  York  at  the  time.  He  must 
have  done  so  to  please  Lamon.19  "Lamon,"  he  told  John  P.  Usher, 
Secretary  of  the  Interior,  "is  a  monomaniac  on  the  subject  of  my 
safety.  .  .  .  What  does  any  one  want  to  assassinate  me  for?" 

Of  course  he  was,  as  Nicolay  and  Hay  put  it,  "too  intelligent 
not  to  know  he  was  in  some  danger."  An  incident  given  by 
Thomas  Pendel,  one  of  the  special  guards,  is  directly  in  point. 
The  stairs  leading  to  Stanton's  private  office  in  the  War  Depart- 
ment were  divided  into  two  flights  by  a  broad  landing.  One  day 
when  Lincoln  and  Pendel  on  their  way  down  had  got  as  far  as  this 
landing,  they  met  a  man  coming  up— a  thickset  man  in  gray 
clothes,  who  narrowly  regarded  Lincoln.  Pendel  noticed  that  Lin- 
coln in  turn  looked  steadily  at  the  man,  as  if  memorizing  his 
features.  After  they  had  left  the  building,  the  President  said  to 
Pendel: 

"Last  night  I  received  a  letter  from  New  York  stating  that 
there  would  be  a  man  here  who  would  attempt  to  take  my  life. 

19  "Recollections";  pp.  270-271. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  71 

In  that  letter  was  a  description  of  the  man  who  was  said  to  be 
anxious  to  kill  me.  His  size  and  the  kind  of  clothes  he  would  wear 
when  he  would  make  the  attempt  were  carefully  described.  The 
man  we  just  passed  agreed  exactly  with  the  description  given  me 
in  that  letter."  Who  was  the  stranger  in  gray?  From  the  upper 
floor  he  turns  a  last  glance  upon  Lincoln  and  vanishes  beyond  our 
ken.  Lincoln  speaks  casually— but  whatever  else  the  man  in  gray 
may  have  been,  he  was  another  reminder  of  the  arrow  by  day  and 
the  terror  by  night. 

Now,  according  to  the  Great  American  Myth,  no  sort  of  thought 
was  ever  really  taken  for  the  safeguarding  of  Lincoln.  There  was 
just  a  shiftless  neglect  of  any  decent  precaution.  Or,  more  dread- 
ful still,  there  were  those  near  to  him,  trusted  and  high  in  power, 
who  purposely  saw  to  it  that  there  should  be  no  decent  precaution, 
because  their  traitorous  wish  was  to  be  rid  of  him. 

From  what  we  have  seen  it  must,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  clear 
that  plenty  of  thought  was  taken  and  a  great  deal  done,  though  at 
first,  because  of  inexperience,  the  management  was  rather  loose. 
As  the  war  progressed,  more  attention  and  care  were  devoted  to 
the  matter.  It  is  plain  to  us  now  that  too  many  different  agencies 
were  employed,  responsibility  was  too  divided,  centralized  au- 
thority was  lacking.  There  were,  it  seems  to  us,  singular  over- 
sights. For  example,  it  is  not  disclosed  that  he  was  especially 
guarded  at  public  receptions,  and  he  was  allowed  to  speak  to 
crowds  at  night  from  upper  windows  of  the  Executive  Mansion. 
In  both  cases  he  was  jeopardized,  though  apparently  nobody 
thought  so  then. 

We  have  today  the  Secret  Service  bureau  of  the  Treasury  De- 
partment, into  whose  sole  charge  are  intrusted  the  persons  of 
President  and  President-elect.  This  system,  the  result  of  experi- 
ence, is  obviously  an  improvement.  Yet  guards  were  close  at  hand 
when  William  McKinley  was  shot,  and  also  when  Franklin  Roose- 
velt narrowly  escaped  the  bullet  intended  for  him.  In  spite  of  the 
comprehensive  machinery  of  European  police,  the  nineteenth 
century  was  marked  on  the  Continent  as  a  century  of  political 
assassinations.  King  Alexander  of  Yugo-Slavia,  though  presumedly 
well-guarded,  was  shot  in  1934. 


72  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Lincoln  was  not  only  fatalistic  and  indifferent  to  his  own  safety 
but  also  by  choice  a  man  of  simple  ways,  on  principle  disliking 
airs  of  official  importance,  just  as  he  disliked  swallow-tailed  coats. 
He  was  continually  kicking  over  the  traces  of  official  harness. 
Most  of  those  who  served  him  came  naturally  enough  to  humor 
his  predilections— as  they  humored  his  dented  "stovepipe"  hat, 
with  its  nap  all  rubbed  askew.  He  had,  too,  a  sensitive  regard  for 
others;  for  their  difficulties,  their  labors,  their  weariness.  "I  went 
with  him  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,"  wrote  John  Hay,  "and  he  read 
Shakespeare  to  me,  the  end  of  'Henry  V  and  the  beginning  of 
'Richard  III,'  till  my  heavy  eyelids  caught  his  considerate  notice, 
and  he  sent  me  to  bed."  Some  there  were,  too  small  to  value  it, 
who  would  seek  to  take  advantage  of  this  humanity  in  him;  but 
they  were  likely  to  find  he  was  not  a  man  to  be  imposed  upon. 

When  he  sat  for  his  portrait  by  Healy  in  the  winter  of  1864, 
Lincoln  had  many  talks  with  the  artist.  Now  and  then  he  revealed 
some  opinion  or  trait.  "He  confided  that  the  protection  insisted 
upon  by  his  guards  irked  him.  Sometimes,  he  said,  he  managed  to 
elude  them,  but  felt  so  repentant  when  he  realized  their  anxiety 
that  he  promised  them  each  time  to  be  more  careful."  20 

One  night  Robert  Lincoln  strode  into  the  secretaries'  room  and 
announced:  "I  have  just  had  a  great  row  with  the  President  of  the 
United  States!"  It  seemed  that  Stanton,  in  an  unwonted  mood  of 
fun,  had  commissioned  Tad  lieutenant;  whereupon  what  did  Tad 
do  but  dismiss  the  regular  guard,  order  a  consignment  of  rifles, 
line  up  the  gardeners  and  other  servants,  and  put  them  on  sentry 
duty!  When  Robert  found  this  out,  he  took  his  objections  to  the 
President,  but  the  President  did  not  see  fit  to  punish  Tad  as  Rob- 
ert recommended.  ".  .  .  He  evidently  looks  upon  it  as  a  good  joke," 
grumbled  Robert,  "and  won't  do  anything  about  it!"  21 

As  soon  as  Tad  had  gone  to  bed,  the  impromptu  guard  was 
without  more  ado  discharged.  It  may  have  been,  therefore,  that 
for  at  least  one  night  (though  not  through  any  deep-laid  plot)  the 
Executive  Mansion  lacked  suitable  protection;  but  that  would  not 
disquiet   the   President.   Assassination   was   to   him  a  well-worn 

20  Marie  de  Mare  in  the  magazine  section  of  the  New  York  Times,  May  9,  1937; 
p.   10. 
31  Carpenter,  "Six  Months  in  the  White  House";  p.  300. 


THE  SAFEGUARDING  OF  LINCOLN  73 

theme.  He  might  ridicule  his  military  behavior  in  the  Black  Hawk 
campaign,  or  profess  that  he  would  make  a  poor  soldier.  But  the 
trip  from  Harrisburg,  with  the  wretched  distortion  of  it  in  the 
public  mind,  had  ingrained  one  thing  deeply  in  him.  A  very  dif- 
ferent ruler  of  men— Cardenas  of  Mexico,  a  violent  land— thus 
phrased  it  for  himself:  It  is  important  that  the  people  know  I 
come  among  them  without  fear. 

As  to  the  suggestion  that  any  person  or  group  of  persons  hold- 
ing distinguished  office  in  Washington  sought  treacherously  to 
bring  Lincoln  to  his  end— this  has  nothing  to  support  it  but  la- 
bored innuendo,  at  variance  with  the  facts.  Wendell  Phillips  once 
in  Faneuil  Hall  rebuked  "the  recreant  American— the  slanderer 
of  the  dead."  It  was  Attorney-General  Austin  of  Massachusetts 
against  whom  he  thundered,  but  Austin  was  by  no  means  the  last 
of  the  breed. 

Lincoln's  Washington  had  plenty  of  picturesque  characters  be- 
sides Lincoln  himself.  "Thad"  Stevens  was  one.  Another  was 
Walt  Whitman,  with  whom  Lincoln  exchanged  "very  cordial" 
bows  and  whose  ruddy  cheeks,  with  their  encirclement  of  silver 
hair,  actually  got  him  arrested  by  an  officer  who  believed  them  a 
disguise.  Still  another  was  the  Polish  Adam  Gurowski.  Generally 
styled  Count  Gurowski,  he  was  an  expert  linguist,  had  written 
books  in  German  and  French,  and  was  employed  in  the  State  De- 
partment as  a  translator  from  1861  to  1863.  There  he  fell  out  with 
Seward,  who  discharged  him.  He  was  a  rabid  critic  of  Lincoln,  and 
his  "Diary,"  of  which  the  first  volume  was  issued  in  1862,  con- 
tained—interlarded with  canny  observations  on  the  progress  of 
the  war— insulting  references  to  the  President  as  well  as  to  many 
others  in  government  or  army.  Hay,  who  called  him  an  "old  nui- 
sance," has  a  story  at  second  hand  of  Gurowski's  drawing  a  revol- 
ver in  furious  rage  at  a  man  with  whom  he  had  quarreled. 

Lamon  says— and  from  Lamon  alone  do  we  hear  of  any  such 
thing— that  Lincoln  suspected  Gurowski. 

So  far  as  my  personal  safety  is  concerned,  Gurowski  is  the  only  man 
who  has  given  me  a  serious  thought  of  a  personal  nature.  From  the 
known  disposition  of  the  man,  he  is  dangerous  wherever  he  may  be.  I 


74  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

have  sometimes  thought  that  he  might  try  to  take  my  life.  It  would  be 
just  like  him  to  do  such  a  thing. 

Thus  Lamon  quotes  Lincoln.  We  know,  however,  that  Gurowski 
was  explicit  in  his  dislike  of  Lamon,  and  by  way  of  returning  the 
compliment  Lamon  may  possibly  have  enlarged  upon  some  chance 
utterance  of  Lincoln's.  Gurowski  detested  Seward  and  Sumner 
about  as  thoroughly  as  he  did  Lincoln,  but  neither  of  them  seems 
ever  to  have  been  worried  regarding  him.  Nor  was  John  Hay, 
though  Gurowski,  on  seeing  Hay  in  Mrs.  Charles  Earnes'  parlor, 
would  go  out  growling. 

Few  could  have  recalled  that  in  Washington  an  attempt  had 
one  time  been  made  to  shoot  a  President.  It  was  on  January  30th, 
1835.  Funeral  ceremonies  in  honor  of  Warren  R.  Davis,  a  mem- 
ber from  North  Carolina,  had  just  been  held  in  the  Hall  of  Repre- 
sentatives. (This  was  the  room  later  known  as  Statuary  Hall,  or 
sometimes  as  the  National  Chamber  of  Horrors.)  A  procession  was 
formed  to  escort  the  body  and  President  Jackson,  walking  in  the 
procession,  was  stepping  out  on  the  portico.  Suddenly  at  point- 
blank  range  a  man  leveled  a  pistol  at  him  and  drew  the  trigger. 
The  cap  exploded  but  the  pistol  missed  fire.  Quickly  the  man 
tried  a  second  pistol— with  like  result.  Jackson  dashed  at  him  with 
uplifted  cane,  and  a  Lieutenant  Gedney  of  the  Navy  knocked  the 
fellow  down.  He  turned  out  to  be  an  Englishman  named  Law- 
rence—Samuel Lawrence,  a  house  painter.  Harriet  Martineau  was 
there  and  saw  Lawrence's  "hands  and  half-bare  arms  struggling 
above  the  heads  of  the  crowd  in  resistance  to  being  handcuffed."  22 

The  Globe  insinuated  that  "a  secret  conspiracy  had  prompted 
the  perpetration  of  the  horrible  deed."  For  a  while  the  President 
himself  believed  as  much;  and  it  is  said  that  he  even  had  grave 
doubts  of  an  old  friend,  George  Poindexter  of  Mississippi.  Law- 
rence was,  however,  adjudged  irresponsible  (he  said  that  Jackson 
had  deprived  him  of  the  British  crown),  and  no  evidence  of  con- 
spiracy was  shown.  An  expert  in  small  arms  figured  that  the  chance 
of  two  successive  misfires  was  one  in  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
thousand.  So  near  did  Andrew  Jackson  come  to  being  the  first 
President  of  the  United  States  struck  down  by  a  bullet. 

23  "Retrospect  of  Western  Travel":  vol.  i,  pp.  161-164. 


Olir   •  THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH 


ABOUT  the  middle  of  February  1861,  L.  E.  Chittenden  (after- 
ward Register  of  the  Treasury)  and  another  "Young  Republican" 
—both  of  them  members  of  a  "committee  of  safety"  in  Washington 
—visited  Baltimore,  bent  upon  their  own  special  inquiries.  From 
a  Unionist  group  there  they  culled  divers  particulars  of  subver- 
sive activities  in  that  city,  and  these  they  transmitted  to  Elihu 
Washburne.  In  the  story  as  Chittenden  told  it  after  a  lapse  of 
years,  one  detail  now  stands  out— a  cursory  reference  to  an  un- 
named actor  who  at  clandestine  meetings  was  wont  to  recite  pas- 
sages of  "Julius  Caesar." 

Among  actors  familiar  to  Baltimore  was  a  young  man  of  whom 
a  sister  long  remembered  that  when  studying  at  home  he  chose 
"Julius  Caesar"  as  an  elocutionary  practice-piece  and  by  the  hour 
declaimed  its  mouth-filling  speeches,  permitting  no  deviations 
from  the  text  in  so  much  as  a  syllable.  He  was,  it  happens,  the 
same  young  man  whom  we  found  playing  at  Albany's  Gayety 
Theatre  on  the  night  of  February  18th,  1861,  and  whose  disunion 
views  were  loudly  expressed  and  ill-received  at  Stanwix  Hall.  It 
has  been  charged  that  he  was  among  those  who  during  the  "three 
glorious  days"  (April  19th,  20th,  and  21st,  1861)  went  out  in  par- 
ties from  Baltimore,  under  the  direction  of  Marshal  Kane,  to  burn 
bridges  on  railway  lines  running  northward.1 

Perhaps  he  was.  It  would  have  been  like  him.  He  said  fiercely 

1This  was  asserted  by  W.  G.  Snethen,  a  lawyer  of  Baltimore,  in  The  Common- 
wealth (Boston),  Apr.  22,  1865;  p.  2.  It  could  have  been  possible.  Booth  did  not 
open  his  third  Albany  engagement  until  the  night  of  Apr.  22,  1861.  (Snethen  was  a 
member  of  the  Republican  committee  from  Baltimore  that  went  to  Pennsylvania 
to  greet  Lincoln  on  his  journey  to  Washington.) 

75 


76  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

of  Lincoln:  "That  sectional  candidate  should  never  have  been 
President,  the  votes  were  doubled  to  seat  him.  He  was  smuggled 
through  Maryland  to  the  White  House.  .  .  .  Look  at  the  cannon 
on  the  heights  of  Baltimore.  It  needed  just  that  to  keep  her  quiet. 
.  .  .  He  is  Bonaparte  in  one  great  move,  that  is,  by  overturning 
this  blind  Republic  and  making  himself  a  king." 

Around  the  young  actor's  life  has  been  woven  an  intricate  veil 
of  fictions.  The  fictions  begin  with  his  birth,  for  1839  has  often 
been  given  as  the  year;  Belgium  has  been  mentioned  as  the  place; 
and  he  has  been  called  the  youngest  of  the  Booths.  John  Wilkes 
Booth  was  born  on  May  10th,  1838,  three  miles  east  of  Belair, 
county-town  of  Harford  (not,  as  occasionally  printed,  Hartford) 
County,  Maryland,  and  some  twenty-five  miles  northeast  of  Balti- 
more; and  he  was  the  next  to  the  youngest  of  the  family.  His 
name  was  from  the  eighteenth-century  English  reformer  John 
Wilkes,  a  rather  scandalous  individual  who  did  good  service  for 
popular  liberties  in  Britain,  criticized  George  the  Third,  sought 
justice  for  the  American  colonies,  and  in  spite  of  all  became  lord 
mayor  of  London.  To  this  John  Wilkes  the  great-grandmother  of 
John  Wilkes  Booth,  Elizabeth  Wilkes,  was  said  to  have  been  re- 
lated. 

John  Wilkes  Booth— known  to  his  brothers  as  simply  John  or 
Johnny— has  been  pictured  as  a  villain  from  his  cradle;  as  a  half- 
demoniac  creature  of  savage  instincts;  as  a  "ham"  actor— ranting, 
boisterous,  lazy,  devoid  of  talent;  as  a  showy  fellow,  coarse- 
grained, trivial,  and  vain.  He  has  been  variously  described  as  the 
hireling  of  a  Southern  junto,  an  emissary  of  the  Roman  Church, 
the  accomplice  of  Andrew  Johnson  in  a  scheme  of  high-vaulting 
ambition,  the  allotted  deputy  of  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle, 
the  avenger  of  a  friend,  the  spearhead  of  a  cabal  within  the  Fed- 
eral government. 

He  it  was  whose  frenzy  closed  one  era  of  our  national  life  and 
opened  another.  But  both  government  and  qualified  historians 
tried  to  dismiss  him  into  limbo;  a  superficial  and  false  chronicle 
was  established  in  the  record;  and  the  whole  subject  quite  natu- 
rally fell  into  the  hands  of  "historical"  novelists,  novelizing  jour- 
nalists, and  persons  with  axes  to  grind. 

Much  of  what  has  since  been  written  regarding  John  Booth  is 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  77 

a  dilution  of  a  series  of  popular  articles  by  George  Alfred  Town- 
send  ("Gath"),  special  correspondent  of  the  New  York  World. 
When  his  articles  were  issued  in  pamphlet  form,  the  author,  just 
turned  twenty-four,  guardedly  explained  that  they  did  not  "as- 
sume to  be  literal  history."  "As  a  brochure  of  the  day,— nothing 
more,"  he  said,  "—I  give  these  Sketches  of  a  Correspondent  to  the 
public."  They  supplied  a  lack  at  the  time  but,  as  Townsend  him- 
self was  evidently  aware,  they  offered  no  proper  substance  for  the 
conscientious  historian  or  biographer.2  Beginning  with  Townsend, 
all  sorts  of  erroneous  ideas  have  thickly  collected  round  Booth, 
his  deed,  his  fate;  and  on  this  account,  as  well  as  through  general 
ignorance,  it  has  been  possible  to  foist  specious  pseudo-history  and 
sham  biography  upon  the  ordinary  reader. 

In  1821  "Booth  the  Elder"— Junius  Brutus  Booth,  English  tra- 
gedian, rival  of  Edmund  Kean— came  from  his  London  triumphs 
to  the  United  States.  For  three  decades  he  continued  popular  with 
American  audiences,  which  delighted  in  his  forceful,  impetuous 
style  and  in  the  often  apocryphal  tales  of  his  eccentricities.3  Even 
during  his  lifetime  he  acquired  an  almost  legendary  character. 
There  was,  in  fact,  a  curious  suggestion  that  he  had  a  "double" 
for  whose  vagaries  he  frequently  was  blamed.  This  double,  it  was 
said,  was  impressed  into  making  a  stage  appearance  for  him  on  at 
least  one  occasion,  and  had  an  embarrassing  way  of  declaiming 
Shakespeare  at  street  corners  and  then  passing  the  hat. 

In  his  stateroom  on  a  Mississippi  steamboat  the  elder  Booth 
died  forlornly  in  1852.  Drink  had  beclouded  his  life  and  his  art, 
and  made  his  unstable  nature  more  difficult.  When  his  antic  dis- 
position was  on,  he  was  strange  enough.  Yet  it  will  hardly  do  to 
label  him  a  madman.  He  was  linguist,  playwright,  scholar,  eclectic 
philosopher;  and  as  an  actor  he  must  have  been  touched  with 
authentic  genius. 

Pathetic  rather  than  amusing  is  his  own  revealing  memoran- 
dum—made at  a  time  when  theaters  were  bidding  for  his  services 
—of  his  wish  to  become  keeper  of  the  Hatteras  light.  He  was  to 

3Townsend's  novel  "Katy  of  Catoctin"  introduces  Booth  and  contains  some  use- 
ful first-hand  notes.  His  "How  Wilkes  Booth  Crossed  the  Potomac,"  in  the  Century 
for  April  1884,  is  a  valuable  study. 

3  British  opinion  has  rated  him  less  highly.  See,  for  example,  the  "Dictionary  of 
National  Biography." 


78  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

have  twenty  acres  of  land  and  to  raise  his  own  vegetables  and 
fruits.  Eventually,  in  the  isolation  of  the  Harford  woodlands,  on  a 
property  of  150  acres,  he  found  the  resting  place  he  had  sought. 
It  was  pleasant,  after  seasons  of  heavy  repertoire  and  tedious  jour- 
neys, to  return  to  this  peace— to  open-air  living,  to  mockingbirds 
and  orioles.  An  earlier  log  dwelling  was  replaced  by  a  brick  cot- 
tage showing  an  English  influence  in  gables,  casements,  and 
diamond  panes.  Orchard  and  vineyard  were  planted;  barn,  stables, 
dairy  were  built,  and  quarters  for  the  Negro  slaves  who  did  most 
of  the  heavy  labor  of  the  farm.  For  Massa  Brutus  viewed  farming 
seriously— subscribing  to  an  agricultural  paper,  studying  the  uses 
of  fertilizers,  and  taking  a  deep  pride  in  the  fact  that  his  homespun 
blankets  and  other  woolens  were  from  the  backs  of  his  own 
sheep.  To  his  few  Negroes  he  was  kind  and  liberal. 

Such  was  the  environment,  such  the  rural  atmosphere  into 
which  John  Booth  was  born.  Despite  Junius  Brutus'  reputed  ir- 
regularities, there  seems  to  have  been  nothing  specially  outlandish 
or  peculiar  about  that  home.  Undoubtedly  it  had  an  English  tinge, 
did  not  run  true  to  the  conventional  ways  of  the  region,  and 
hence  would  be  an  object  of  mistrustful  comment  among  the 
neighbors.  There  was,  too,  a  further  count  against  it. 

In  1838  Richard  Booth,  the  grandfather,  was  living  in  the 
household  at  Belair.  As  a  young  man  he  had  set  out  for  America 
during  the  Revolutionary  War  to  enlist  in  the  cause  of  freedom; 
and  though  he  did  not  then  reach  these  shores,  yet  as  a  barrister 
in  London  he  adorned  his  drawing  room  with  a  portrait  of  Wash- 
ington to  which  all  on  entering  were  requested  to  bow.  Finally, 
in  days  of  quiet,  he  did  get  to  America;  and  around  Belair  and 
Hickory  and  Churchville  it  was  told  to  his  shame  that  he  wrought 
what  he  could  in  freedom's  cause  by  helping  many  a  slave  to  es- 
cape to  the  soil  of  Pennsylvania.  This  was  French  "red  republi- 
canism" with  a  vengeance,  and  quite  sufficient  to  establish  him 
and  the  whole  menage  as  an  odd  lot.  Inasmuch  as  he  died  in  1839, 
it  is  not  likely  that  he  was  remembered  by  John,  who  assuredly 
did  not  at  all  partake  of  his  spirit.  John  T.  Ford  says  (in  the 
Ford  MSS.)  that  although  Richard  never  was  prosecuted,  Junius 
Brutus  "did  on  more  than  one  occasion  pay  for  a  runaway."  ("A 
representative  from  Louisiana  [Morse],  during  the  debate  on  the 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  79 

compromise  of  1850,  said  in  the  House:  'A  Union  is  not  worth  a 
curse  as  long  as  distinction  exists  between  negroes  and  horses.' 
'Niggers  are  property,  sir,'  an  illiterate  slave-holder  told  Olmsted, 
'the  same  as  horses  and  cattle;  and  nobody  has  any  more  right  to 
help  a  negro  that  has  run  away  than  he  has  to  steal  a  horse.'  ")4 

Junius  Brutus  held  opinion  with  Pythagoras  as  to  the  taking  of 
animal  life;  and  while  he  was  in  charge  at  the  farm,  all  life  there, 
both  wild  and  domestic,  was  supposed  to  be  sacred— even  turkey 
buzzards  and  copperheads  were  to  be  spared.  "Cruelty,"  he  said, 
"is  the  offspring  of  idleness  of  mind  and  beastly  ignorance,  and,  in 
children,  should  be  repressed  and  not  encouraged,  as  is  too  often 
the  case,  by  unthinking  beings  who  surround  them."  Though  on 
moonlit  nights  in  autumn  the  countryside  echoed  to  the  baying  of 
hounds,  the  Booth  boys  took  no  part  in  the  'possum-hunt.  Pre- 
sumably the  neighbors  thought  this  queer,  for  it  was  against  the 
custom  of  the  country;  but  it  was  not  a  kind  of  training  calculated 
to  make  lads  careless  with  firearms.  When  John  Booth  was  a 
youngster,  his  sensibility  led  him  to  rescue  a  katydid  or  even  to 
go  out  of  his  way  to  avoid  injuring  a  lightning  bug. 

From  1842  onward  we  find  the  Booths  living  for  part  of  the 
year  in  Baltimore— first  on  High  Street,  then  on  Front  Street,  and 
lastly  at  62  North  Exeter.  John  went  to  school  in  Baltimore, 
though  vacations  were  passed  at  the  farm.  According  to  his  sister 
Asia,  he  was,  as  a  student,  less  quickly  receptive  than  his  brothers, 
but  more  persevering  and  tenacious.  To  the  family's  diversion  he 
toiled  away  at  memorizing  parts  of  Byron's  "Giaour"— years  after- 
ward he  could  repeat  them  word  for  word.  Nor  was  he  moody  or 
"temperamental."  It  was  not  he  but  Asia  who  was  the  refractory 
subject  of  the  hypothetical  "goddess  of  good  temper"  that  presided 
over  the  house. 

John's  eldest  brother,  Junius  Brutus  the  second— known  in  the 
family  as  June— had  been  born  in  1821  and  was  therefore  consid- 
erably older.  Large,  robust,  jovial,  he  had  entered  a  theatrical 
career  as  actor  and  manager.  As  an  actor  he  was  capable  but  not 
highly  gifted,  the  title  role  in  "King  John"  being  considered  his 
best  part.  In  his  later  years  he  conducted  a  resort  hotel  at  Man- 
chester-by-the-Sea  in  Massachusetts.  Edwin,  older  than  John  by 

4  Rhodes,  vol.  i,  p.  369. 


80  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

more  than  four  years,  made  his  professional  debut  at  sixteen,  and 
after  John's  schooldays  in  Baltimore  the  two  saw  comparatively 
little  of  each  other.  In  1852  Edwin  left  for  California,  where  he 
appeared  under  June's  management;  then  as  a  star  he  went  in 
1854  with  Laura  Keene  to  Sydney  and  Melbourne;  and  on  his  way 
back  from  Australia  he  briefly  managed  the  Royal  Hawaiian  The- 
tre  at  Honolulu.  Joseph  Adrien  ("Doc"),  less  than  two  years 
younger  than  John,  had  no  bent  for  the  stage  but  after  a  medical 
course  became  an  ear-and-throat  specialist  and  opened  an  office  in 
New  York.  The  older  sister,  Rosalie  (usually  called  Rose),  was  of 
delicate  health  and  so  withdrawn  that,  although  she  lived  to  be 
sixty-five,  it  has  been  said  that  she  died  in  infancy.  She  devoted 
herself  to  the  care  of  the  mother,  Mary  Ann  Booth,  an  exceptional 
woman,  whose  favorite  was  ever  the  affectionate  but  careless  John. 
At  the  Exeter  Street  house  Edwin  and  John  got  up  private 
theatricals,  the  casts  of  which  were  filled  out  with  young  friends. 
An  actor  often  taking  part  was  Henry  W.  Mears,  who  almost  to  his 
ninety-first  birthday  vigorously  survived  as  a  direct  link  with  John 
Booth,  whom  he  knew  well,  and  with  events  in  Baltimore  during 
the  Civil  War  period  and  the  years  immediately  thereafter.  John 
was  for  a  time  a  pupil  at  a  boarding  school  in  a  Quaker  settlement 
at  Cockeysville,  Baltimore  County.  It  was  while  he  was  there  that, 
in  the  very  pattern  of  melodrama,  a  Gypsy  read  his  fortune  from 
his  hand.  He  jotted  down  her  words: 

Ah,  you've  a  bad  hand.  .  .  .  You'll  break  hearts,  they'll  be  nothing  to 
you.  You'll  die  young.  .  .  .  You're  born  under  an  unlucky  star.  You've 
got  in  your  hand  a  thundering  crowd  of  enemies.  . . .  You'll  make  a  bad 
end,  and  have  plenty  to  love  you  afterwards.  .  .  .  Now,  young  sir,  I've 
never  seen  a  worse  hand,  and  I  wish  I  hadn't  seen  it.  .  .  . 

He  had  laughed  at  this— but  ever  and  again  it  would  trouble 
him.5 

With  his  younger  brother  he  was  next  sent  to  St.  Timothy's 
Hall  at  Catonsville,  a  military  academy  under  Episcopalian  aus- 
pices. Most  of  the  cadets  were  from  the  South  and  all  of  John's 
intimates  were  Southerners.  The  corps  was  drilled  in  the  use  of 
the  rifle  and  of  light  artillery;  and  on  Wednesday  and  Saturday 

"Farjeon   (ed.),  "The  Unlocked  Book"   (Eng.  ed.);  pp.  57-58. 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  81 

afternoons,  when  school  did  not  keep,  John  and  others  with  Colt's 
revolvers  ranged  the  near-by  woods  in  quest  of  small  game.  Thus, 
exempt  from  the  ban  that  obtained  at  the  Booth  farm,  he  became 
a  good  shot.  While  at  the  Hall  he  was  baptized  into  the  Episcopal 
Church.  In  after  days  a  classmate  described  him  as  "noble  in 
mind,  generous  to  a  fault,  and  honorable  in  all  his  actions."  The 
cadets  nicknamed  him  "Billy  Bowlegs";  but  if  his  legs  were  bowed 
(as  several  have  said  they  were),  it  must  have  been  but  slightly, 
for  in  subsequent  portraits  of  him  the  defect  is  not  noticeable. 
Contemporary  evidence  presents  him  as  of  winning  appearance, 
charming  manners,  lively  disposition,  and  kindly  nature. 

There  was  but  one  thing  about  him,  one  strain  in  him,  that  his 
mates  remembered  as  seeming  different  and  peculiar.  When  they 
would  discuss  cherished  ambitions— how  they  dreamed  of  out- 
shining Reverdy  Johnson,  perhaps,  or  Webster,  or  some  other 
distinguished  American— John  seemed  to  them  to  accent  notoriety. 
No  matter  how  extravagant  and  outre  the  deed,  he  thought  of 
doing  something  that  by  its  sheer  impact  must  enforce  recognition 
and  insure  remembrance.  He  once  put  his  notions  into  this  form: 

I  wish  there  was  an  arch  or  statue  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea,  across  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar,  with  one  side  resting  on  the  rock  of 
Gibraltar  and  the  other  on  an  equally  prominent  rock  on  the  coast  of 
Africa.  I  would  leave  everything  and  never  rest  until  I  had  devised 
some  means  to  throw  it  over  into  the  sea.  .  .  .  All  Europe,  Asia,  and 
Africa  would  resound  with  the  name  of  John  Booth.  I  tell  you  it  would 
be  the  greatest  feat  ever  executed  by  one  man. 

"Billy,"  a  listener  objected,  "suppose  the  falling  statue  took 
you  down  with  it,  what  good  would  all  your  glory  do  you  then?" 

"I  should  die,"  rejoined  John,  "with  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
I  had  done  something  never  before  accomplished— something  no 
other  man  would  probably  ever  do."  6 

It  was  boyish  gasconade  in  an  idle  hour.  We  must  not  read  too 
much  into  it— but 

The  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts. 

When  he  came  back  from  the  Hall,  John  settled  down  to  farm- 
ing for  a  while,  acting  as  overseer  of  the  slave  hands  and  of  the 

6  "The  Unlocked  Book"    (Eng.  ed.);  pp.  149-150. 


82  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

hired  white  labor  needed  at  harvest.  He  was  really  fond  of  country 
living,  of  what  he  termed  the  "earth's  healthy  breath."  In  his  own 
bookcase,  besides  schoolbooks  and  Shakespeare,  were  Greek  and 
Roman  histories,  Milton,  Byron,  Poe,  N.  P.  Willis,  Longfellow, 
Whittier,  and  Felicia  Hemans;  Marryatt  was  there,  too,  and 
Bulwer-Lytton  (Asia  felt  that  John  might  not  be  benefited  by 
Bulwer's  wildly  romantic  vein);  and  Asia  and  John  read  Plu- 
tarch's "Lives"  together,  and  Hawthorne,  and  quantities  of  poetry. 

John  broke  and  rode  a  black  colt  he  had  named  Cola  di  Rienzi, 
after  Bulwer's  hero.  It  may  have  been  this  horse  on  which  (ac- 
cording to  a  statement  of  Edwin's)  he  charged  across  the  farm, 
spouting  heroic  speeches  and  flourishing  a  lance,  relic  of  the 
Mexican  War.  At  any  rate  he  was  a  skillful  and  fearless  rider.  Ed- 
win's impression  of  him  at  this  period  was  of  a  good-hearted,  fun- 
loving,  essentially  gentle  boy,  but  a  "rattle-pated"  one,  filled  with 
Quixotic  ideas. 

Asia,  who  knew  him  better  than  did  Edwin,  wrote,  ".  .  .  He  was 
a  singular  combination  of  gravity  and  joy."  His  bedroom  faced 
the  east— he  wished  a  morning  view.  He  said:  "Don't  let  us  be  sad. 
Life  is  so  short— and  the  world  is  so  beautiful"— the  cry  not  of 
Young  Werther  but  of  Horace  the  Epicurean.  Yet  he  liked  sad 
music  best— "Ben  Bolt,"  for  example,  or  the  plaintive  Negro  folk- 
songs. Now  and  then  he  would  recur  to  the  Gypsy.  Hers  had  been 
strange  words;  he  knew  them  by  heart.  But,  of  course,  strange 
words  were  a  fortune-teller's  trade  when  her  palm  was  crossed— it 
was  a  mere  pretense  of  occult  knowledge.  .  .  .  What  was  it  she 
had  said?  You'll  die  young. 

Though  enjoying  Negro  music,  he  held  toward  Negroes  them- 
selves, as  human  beings,  an  attitude  of  mingled  amusement  and 
contempt.  His  associations  at  St.  Timothy's  Hall  had  quickened 
his  youthful  prejudice  for  the  South's  "peculiar  system"  and  he 
was  becoming  increasingly  fanatical  about  Southern  "rights." 
Furthermore,  he  was  attending  Know-Nothing  meetings— clandes- 
tine meetings  by  night— and  often  getting  home  at  dawn.  Irish 
immigration  into  Maryland  had  given  pro-slavery  folk  an  uneasy 
feeling  that  in  the  long  run  slave  labor  would  not  be  able  to  com- 
pete with  free  labor.  The  American  Party    (actually  a  secret  so- 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  83 

ciety  whose  members  were  commonly  styled  Know-Nothings  be- 
cause of  their  professed  ignorance  of  its  objects)  was  opposed  to 
foreign  immigration,  and  some  of  the  pro-slavery  element  in 
Maryland  believed  that  here  was  a  handy  means  of  curbing  the 
inroads  of  white  labor.  Opinion  in  the  state  was,  to  be  sure,  di- 
vided on  this  as  on  almost  everything  else,  but  Know-Nothing 
tactics  fomented  disorder.7 

Public  mass  meetings  were  also  held  by  the  Know-Nothings, 
and  crowds  flocked  to  these  for  an  outing  as  well  as  for  the  ora- 
tory. At  one  such  meeting  in  Harford  County,  John  was  conspicu- 
ous in  gala  raiment,  topped  by  an  official's  badge.  A  great  turnout 
was  present,  for  the  speaker  of  the  day  was  Henry  Winter  Davis,  a 
lawyer  of  Baltimore  and  Know-Nothing  representative  in  Con- 
gress. When  the  Know-Nothing  movement  petered  out  nationally, 
Davis  united  with  the  Constitutional  Union  Party  of  Bell  and 
Everett.  Though  still  later  he  became  a  Republican,  he  was  among 
Lincoln's  bitterest  and  most  relentless  personal  opponents.  Much 
admired  for  his  eloquence,  he  made  a  strong  impression  in  the 
House,  and  his  friends  were  roundly  convinced  that,  had  he  lived, 
he  would  have  left  "the  most  brilliant  name  in  the  parliamentary 
annals  of  America."  Under  such  leadership,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  young  John  Booth,  with  his  prepossessions  and  his  small  ex- 
perience of  the  great  world,  was  deeply  influenced  by  the  tenets 
and  rites  of  the  Know-Nothings. 

The  farm  did  not  prosper.  A  neighbor  took  it  on  shares  but 
this  experiment,  promising  at  first,  turned  out  badly.  Then  one 
morning  John  rode  away  on  Cola  to  Baltimore  for  a  few  days' 
visit;  and  when  he  got  home  he  said,  with  a  new  look  on  his  face, 
a  new  ring  in  his  voice:  "Guess  what  I've  done!  I've  made  my  first 
appearance  on  any  stage!"  He  had  played  Richmond  in  "Richard 
III"  at  the  St.  Charles  Theatre— "for  this  night  only." 

Already  he  had  been  looking  toward  the  stage.  For  ease  and 
"deportment"  he  had  studied  dance  steps  with  J.  R.  Codet,  a 

'Lincoln  wrote  (August  1855)  to  Joshua  Speed:  "You  inquire  where  I  now  stand. 
That  is  a  disputed  point.  I  think  I  am  a  Whig;  but  others  say  there  are  no  Whigs, 
and  that  I  am  an  Abolitionist.  ...  I  am  not  a  Know-Nothing,  that  is  certain. 
How  could  I  be?  How  can  any  one  who  abhors  the  oppression  of  negroes  be  in 
favor  of  degrading  classes  of  white  people?" 


84  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

stage  dancer  then  well  known.  (Those  were  days  when  "deport- 
ment" was  as  much  expected  from  a  "ute"— or  general  utility— as 
from  a  leading  man.)  Gaining  what  he  could  from  treatises  on  the 
voice,  he  had  practiced  elocution  in  the  Belair  woods;  but  Asia 
and  he  had  decided  that  an  instructor  was  necessary.  He  thought 
himself  angular  and  ungraceful.  "I  can  never,"  he  lamented,  "be  a 
nimble  skip-about  like  Romeo.  I'm  too  square  and  solid."  Asia 
had  held  the  book  while  he  recited  poetry  and  Shakespearean  trag- 
edies—especially "Julius  Caesar."  "How,"  he  had  asked  her,  "shall 
I  ever  have  a  chance  on  the  stage?" 

Now  he  felt  the  chance  had  come.  He  confided  to  Asia  that  he 
wished  to  be  distinctively  a  Southern  actor,  beloved  of  the  South- 
ern people.  There  followed  intensive  home  drill  in  acting  versions 
of  Shakespeare— in  "The  Merchant,"  in  Cibber's  adaptation  of 
"Richard  III,"  above  all  in  "Julius  Caesar."  Though  not  a  quick 
student,  John  was  dogged;  though  untrained,  he  was  determined 
and,  as  the  untrained  so  often  are,  rich  in  assurance.  It  was  useless 
to  seek  to  dissuade  him.  After  all,  Edwin  had  ventured  at  even  an 
earlier  age— when  only  sixteen  he  had  played  Tressel.  John  ap- 
peared again  in  Baltimore— Baltimore,  where  he  had  so  many 
friends;  and  this  time  it  was  to  Edwin's  Richard  that  he  played 
Richmond. 

In  the  summer  of  1857  he  joined  the  stock  company  at  Phila- 
delphia's Arch  Street  Theatre,  of  which  William  Wheatley  was 
then  lessee  and  manager.  The  regular  season  opened  on  August 
15th,  and  among  twenty-nine  "distinguished  names"  listed  in  a 
preliminary  advertisement  was  "Mr.  J.  B.  Wilks— from  the  N. 
York  Theatres,  his  1st  appearance  in  Phila."  True,  "Mr.  Wilks" 
was  not  very  distinguished  as  yet;  and  exactly  how  he  could  have 
been  from  the  "N.  York  Theatres"  we  need  not  trouble  to  in- 
quire. Allston  Brown's  "History  of  the  American  Stage"  says  he 
made  his  debut  as  Second  Mask  in  Hannah  Cowley's  "The  Belle's 
Stratagem"  and  remained  during  that  season.  For  the  season  of 
1858-1859  we  find  him  at  Richmond,  where  he  was  a  member  of 
the  stock  company  of  the  Marshall  Theatre  (commonly  known  as 
the  Richmond),  then  managed  by  George  Kunkel.  As  Richmond 
in  1858  was  a  city  of  only  about  35,000,  the  members  of  the  com- 
pany were  known,  at  least  by  sight,  to  many  of  the  townsfolk.  The 


From  an  O'd  Print 


THE  RICHMOND  THEATRE  IN  1865 


(After  a  sketch  by  J.  R.  Hamilton) 

This  building  (with  the  United  States  flag  floating  above  it),  at  the  corner  of 
Broad  and  Seventh  Streets,  was  built  on  the  site  of  the  Marshall  (or  Richmond) 
Theatre,  upon  whose  stage  John  Booth  appeared  as  a  member  of  the  stock 
company.  The  older  building,  opened  November  14th,  1838,  was  burned 
January  2nd,  1862;  that  here  shown  was  built  the  same  year.  A  train  of  the 
Richmond,  Fredericksburg  and  Potomac  is  standing  on  Broad  Street.  It  was 
here  that  Booth  entrained  with  the  Richmond  Grays  for  Charlestown  and 
the  hanging  of  John  Brown 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  85 

season  opened  on  September  4th  and  on  the  10th  John  was  writing 
thus  to  Edwin:8 

Dear  Ted 

I  would  have  written  to  you  before  this,  but  I  have  been  so  busily 
engaged,  and  am  such  a  slow  writer  that  I  could  not  find  time.  I  am 
rooming  with  H  Langdon,  he  has  stoped  drinking  and  we  get  along 
very  well  together.  This  climate  dont  agree  with  me.  I  have  felt  ill  ever 
since  I  have  been  here.  I  called  on  Dr  Beeal  soon  after  I  arrived  here. 
He  and  his  Lady  seem  a  very  nice  couple.  I  like  them  very  much.  He 
has  put  me  under  a  course  of  medicine,  the  same  I  have  been  subject 
to  before.  I  understand  it  is  that  that  makes  me  so  languid  and  stupid. 
I  have  played  several  good  parts,  seince  I  have  been  here,  Cool  in  Lon- 
don Assurance  last  night.  I  believe  I  am  getting  along  very  well.  I  like 
the  people,  place,  and  Management,  so  I  hope  to  be  very  comfortable. 
There  is  only  one  objection  and  that  is  I  believe  every  one  knows  me 
already.  I  have  heard  my  name — Booth — called  for,  one  or  two  nights, 
and  on  account  of  the  likeness  the  papers  deigned  to  mention  me.  How 
are  you  getting  along.  I  had  hoped  to  hear  from  you  before  this.  Give 
Mother  my  love.  For  I  may  not  be  able  to  write  her  this  week,  as  they 
are  casting  Miss  Mitchell's  peices,  and  I  will  have  much  to  study.  Ex- 
cuse this  dull  letter.  God  bless  you,  write  soon,  and  believe  me  I  am 
ever  your  affectionate  Brother 

John. 

John  wished  to  make  his  own  reputation  before  appearing 
under  the  Booth  name  and  for  that  reason  objected  to  being  rec- 
ognized by  his  resemblance  to  Edwin.  "Miss  Mitchell"  is  pre- 
sumably Maggie  Mitchell,  whose  elfin  performance  in  "Fanchon 
the  Cricket"  is  among  the  finer  traditions  of  the  American  stage. 

A  rare  playbill  of  November  18th,  1858,9  shows  John  in  the 
minor  part  of  Poisson  of  the  Comedie  Franchise  in  John  Oxen- 
ford's  "Adrienne  the  Actress,"  with  Miss  Avonia  Jones,  guest  star, 
as  Adrienne  Lecouvreur.  He  likewise  figured  in  the  afterpiece  of 
the  same  evening,  a  farce  entitled  "Jenny  Lind."  Both  personally 
and  as  an  actor  he  became  popular  in  Richmond.  Socially,  actors 
were  then  received  more  freely  in  the  South  than  in  the  North; 
and  John  Booth  was  a  social  being.  He  was  back  again  for  the 
season  of  1859-1860,  which  opened  on  September  6th,  and  in  the 

8  From  the  original  at  The  Players  and  here  printed  for  the  first  time  by  special 
permission. 
"Owned  by  Mr.  Irving  Greentree  of  Richmond. 


86  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

city  directory  for  i860  his  address,  under  the  name  of  Booth,  is 
given  as  the  Powhatan  Hotel.  Partner  with  Kunkel  in  manage- 
ment was  John  T.  Ford,  who  since  1854  had  been  directing  the 
Holliday  Street  Theatre  in  Baltimore,  and  who  had  known  John 
from  childhood. 

George  Crutchfield,  one  of  those  who  often  saw  John  play  and 
who  knew  him  outside  of  the  theater,  wrote  of  him,  a  half-century 
later,  as  "a  man  of  high  character  &  sociable  disposition,  &  liked 
by  every  one  with  whom  he  associated."  Though  friends  "joked 
him  about  his  bow-legs,"  said  Crutchfield,  he  was  considered  "very 
handsome,"  and  in  winter  his  fur-trimmed  overcoat  was  a  common 
sight  on  Richmond's  streets.10 

In  his  fascinating  "The  End  of  an  Era,"  John  S.  Wise  refers 
to  Booth  as  he  was  at  this  time  and  as  he  seemed  to  Wise's  older 
brother  Jennings,  who  had  been  in  the  diplomatic  service  at  Berlin 
and  Paris. 

One  night  we  attended  the  play  of  "East  Lynne"  at  the  old  Rich- 
mond Theatre.  The  performance  was  poor  enough,  to  be  sure,  to  a 
young  man  fresh  from  Paris,  but  I  thought  it  was  great.  On  our  way 
home,  he  remarked  that  the  only  performer  of  merit  in  the  caste  [sic] 
was  the  young  fellow,  John  Wilkes  Booth.  In  him,  he  said,  there  was 
the  making  of  a  good  actor.  The  criticism  made  an  impression  upon 
me,  who  remembered  the  man  and  the  name. 

After  John  Brown's  raid,  while  Brown  and  those  captured  with 
him  were  in  prison  at  Charlestown  and  while  there  was  talk  on 
the  one  side  of  a  possible  jail  delivery  and  on  the  other  of  a  pos- 
sible lynching,  Governor  Wise  called  out  troops  to  guard  the 
captives.  The  separate  company  of  Richmond  Grays  was  ordered 
to  entrain  by  the  Richmond,  Fredericksburg  and  Potomac,  which 
left  the  town  on  the  street  level  at  a  point  on  Broad  Street  not  far 
from  the  Marshall  Theatre.  Just  as  the  special  train  was  about 
ready  to  start,  John  Booth  came  out  of  the  theater  and  begged  to 
go  along.  He  was  informed  that  the  train  was  strictly  for  military 
use,  but  so  earnestly  did  he  plead  that  Capt.  Louis  J.  Bossieux  at 
last  consented  and  a  uniform  was  issued  to  him.  Inasmuch  as  he 

"The  original  letter,  dated  July  5,  1909,  is  in  the  Valentine  Museum  at  Rich- 
mond. 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  87 

was  familiar  with  military  drill,  he  fitted  easily  into  the  ranks.11 
From  Charlestown  a  correspondent  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer 
reported: 

The  military  aspect  of  the  town  yesterday  was  very  gay,  the  weather 
being  fine,  and  the  troops  availing  themselves  of  the  opportunity  of 
making  an  exploration  of  the  streets  and  alleys,  many  going  beyond  the 
suburbs.  The  Richmond  Grays  and  Company  F,  which  seem  to  vie  with 
each  other  in  the  handsome  appearance  they  present,  reminded  one  of 
uncaged  birds,  so  wild  and  gleesome  they  appear.  Amongst  them  I 
notice  Mr.  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  a  son  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  who,  though 
not  a  member,  as  soon  as  he  heard  the  tap  of  the  drum,  threw  down 
the  sock  and  buskin,  and  shouldered  his  musket  and  marched  with  the 
Grays  to  the  reported  scene  of  deadly  conflict.12 

On  December  2nd  John  Brown  was  led  out  to  die.  The  rope 
was  adjusted— and  then,  said  the  Associated  Press  dispatch,  "the 
soldiers  marched  and  countermarched,  and  took  their  position  as 
if  an  enemy  was  in  sight.  Nearly  ten  minutes  was  thus  occupied, 
the  prisoner  standing  meanwhile.  Mr.  Avis  [the  jailer]  inquired 
if  he  was  not  tired.  Brown  replied,  'No;  but  don't  keep  me  waiting 
longer  than  necessary.' 

"At  fifteen  minutes  past  eleven  the  trap  fell.  A  slight  grasping 
of  the  hands  and  twitching  of  the  muscles  was  visible,  and  then  all 
was  quiet." 

As  the  trap  was  sprung,  a  private  of  the  Richmond  Grays  was 
seen  to  turn  ghastly  pale.  Those  near  him  inquired  whether  he 
felt  ill  and  he  answered  that  he  would  like  a  stiff  drink  of  whisky. 
It  was  John  Booth,  the  young  actor  to  whom  mimic  death  was  a 
common  sight,  who  had  been  thus  affected  by  the  sorry  reality. 

After  his  second  season  at  Richmond,  John  strikes  out  upon  that 
meteoric  course  along  which  we  trace  him  at  first  vaguely  but  soon 
with  some  degree  of  clearness.  He  sets  forth  as  a  traveling  star, 
beginning  in  the  South.  For  a  time  he  is  at  Montgomery,  Alabama. 

n  Account  of  George  W.  Libby,  a  member  of  the  Grays  (Weddell,  "Richmond, 
Virginia,  in  Old  Prints";  p.  203).  Crutchfield,  a  member  of  the  Light  Infantry 
Blues,  wrote:  "He  [Booth]  was  in  the  cast  for  that  night's  play  &  when  asked  how 
Kunkle  was  going  to  get  along  without  him,  replied  'that  he  didn't  know  and 
didn't  care.'  " 

"Nov.  28,  1859;  p.  2. 


88  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Wherever  he  goes,  we  are  likely  to  hear  of  something  sensational 
in  connection  with  him;  nor  are  these  incidents  the  creations  of 
press  agents,  for  the  press  agent  is  as  yet  a  bird  unknown.  At  Co- 
lumbus, Georgia,  he  is  "accidentally  shot"  and  cannot  appear  as 
Hamlet,  J.  W.  Albaugh  taking  his  place.  At  Albany,  New  York 
(where  on  February  nth,  1861,  he  opens  his  first  engagement), 
while  appearing  as  Pescara  in  Sheil's  "The  Apostate,"  he  in  some 
way  strikes  upon  his  dagger's  point,  which  enters  his  right  armpit, 
inflicting  a  bloody  and  painful  wound.  On  the  night  when  the 
Lincolns  are  visiting  the  city,  he  reappears  in  the  same  role  but 
his  right  arm  is  bound  to  his  side  and  he  fences  like  a  demon  with 
his  left.13  On  April  25th  his  third  and  final  engagement  in  Albany 
meets  a  sudden  end.  He  is  at  this  time  supported  by  Henrietta 
Irving,  a  member  of  the  stock  at  the  Gayety,  who  rushes  into  his 
room  at  Stanwix  Hall  and  cuts  his  face  with  a  dirk,  then  stabs 
herself,  though  by  no  means  fatally.  The  cause  is  said  to  have  been 
"disappointed  affection,  or  some  little  affair  of  that  sort."  14 

During  the  following  season  he  roams  widely.  At  the  end  of 
November  he  is  at  Detroit,  whence  he  proceeds  to  successful  en- 
gagements at  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  Pittsburg,  St.  Louis,  Chicago. 
Then  on  his  native  heath  of  Baltimore,  at  Ford's  Holliday  Street 
Theatre,  he  is  acclaimed  for  his  "incomparable  impersonation"  of 
Richard  III  and  saluted  as  "an  actor  of  undoubted  ability  and 
genius,"  for  whom  is  predicted  a  most  brilliant  future.15 

In  March  1862  New  York  saw  the  reopening  of  Wallack's  old 
theater  (485  Broadway,  near  Broome  Street)  as  Mary  Provost's. 
It  had  been  refurbished  and  Miss  Provost,  a  New  York  favorite, 
was  nominally  its  manager.  "Miss  Provost,  we  take  pleasure  in 
announcing,  has  had  it  washed,"  said  the  World.  "She  has,  more- 
over, signalized  her  opening  attempt  at  New- York  management 
by  engaging  a  star  of  real  magnitude,  and  singular  though  fitful 
brilliancy."  The  star  was  none  other  than  John  Booth,  whose 

13  Spirit  of  the  Times,  Nov.  3,  i860;  p.  144.  Phelps,  "Players  of  a  Century";  pp. 
324-326. 

"She  became  the  wife  of  Edward  Eddy  and  continued  upon  the  stage  for  a 
number  of  years.  This  scene  has  been  represented  as  occurring  at  Madison,  Indiana, 
yet  an  item  in  the  Madison  Courier  for  May  11    (p.  3)  expressly  places  it  in  Albany. 

u  Spirit  of  the  Times,  Mar.  1,  1862;  p.  413. 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  89 

reception  in  what  New  York's  critics  even  then  termed  "the  prov- 
inces" had  been  noted  in  managerial  offices. 

He  opened  on  the  17th  in  "Richard  III"  to  a  house  so  crowded 
that  the  Times'  reviewer  was  unable  to  get  a  seat.  During  the  re- 
mainder of  the  week  the  theater  was  packed  with  enthusiastic 
audiences.  It  was  noted  that  John  strongly  resembled  Edwin  but 
was  stouter  in  build  and  stronger  of  voice,  and  the  Sunday  Mer- 
cury concluded  that  "under  intelligent  tutelage"  he  would  make 
a  better  actor  than  his  distinguished  brother.  Other  attractions  in 
New  York  were  Lester  Wallack;  opera  at  the  Academy  of  Music, 
with  Miss  Kellogg,  Mme.  Strakosch,  and  Brignoli;  Gottschalk  and 
Carlotta  Patti  in  joint  recital  at  Niblo's  Saloon;  Commodore  Nutt 
("the  $30,000  Nutt")  at  Barnum's— but  John  held  his  own  against 
them  all  and  was  retained  for  two  weeks  more.  His  support  was 
excellent. 

One  night  during  this  engagement,  Booth  as  Richard  seemed  in 
the  combat  with  E.  L.  Tilton  as  Richmond  to  become  oblivious  of 
his  surroundings.  He  sprang  at  Tilton,  who  fought  back  desper- 
ately while  the  audience,  sensing  the  nature  of  the  duel,  watched 
eagerly  without  applause.  Tilton  was  at  last  driven  over  the  foot- 
lights amid  the  shrieks  of  the  ladies  and  tumbled  into  the  orches- 
tra pit,  dislocating  his  right  shoulder.  To  a  salvo  of  cheers  he  re- 
gained the  stage  and  the  curtain  was  rung  down,  the  colloquy 
between  Richard  and  Derby  being  omitted. 

The  Times  considered  John  a  highly  valuable  addition  to  the 
limited  roster  of  tragedians,  adding  "We  cannot  name  a  better 
Richard."  The  Spirit  of  the  Times  thought  him  immensely  ef- 
fective as  Pescara,  admirable  as  Charles  de  Moor;  "an  actor  of 
genius  and  talent,  with  the  capacity  of  becoming  very  great  in  the 
more  tempestuous  sort  of  tragedy  and  melodrama."  The  World 
decided  that  his  merits  had  justified  his  hearty  welcome,  that  his 
faults  were  such  as  would  readily  yield  to  experience  and  training. 

In  May  he  was  at  the  Boston  Museum  for  two  weeks  (from  the 
12th  to  the  24th),  and  the  management  proclaimed  that  the  ex- 
traordinary furore  inspired  by  this  young  artist  had  never  been 
equaled  by  any  other  Museum  star.  He  enlisted,  said  the  Tran- 
script,  "the   deep   interest  of  our   oldest   and   most   intelligent 


go  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

theatre-goers"  and  "gave  promise  of  attaining  a  foremost  posi- 
tion." In  a  lengthy  analysis  of  the  relative  merits  of  John  and 
Edwin,  the  critic  of  the  Post  had  this  to  say: 

Edwin  has  more  poetry,  John  Wilkes  more  passion;  Edwin  has  more 
melody  of  movement  and  utterance,  John  Wilkes  more  energy  and  ani- 
mation; Edwin  is  more  correct,  John  Wilkes  more  spontaneous;  Edwin 
is  more  Shakespearean,  John  Wilkes  more  melo-dramatic;  and  in  a 
word,  Edwin  is  a  better  Hamlet,  John  Wilkes  a  better  Richard  III. 

During  the  next  season  he  returned  to  the  Museum  for  four  weeks 
(January  19th  to  February  14th,  1863).  He  had  now  added  to  his 
repertoire,  appearing  not  only  as  Fabien  and  Louis  in  "The  Cor- 
sican  Brothers"  but  also  in  the  comedy  roles  of  Alfred  Evelyn  in 
Bulwer's  "Money"  and  of  Petruchio  in  "Katherine  and  Petru- 
chio."  He  seems  to  have  made  a  special  impression  in  "Richard 
III"  and  as  Raphael  in  "The  Marble  Heart,"  but  he  played  to 
full  houses  throughout  and  the  Transcript  characterized  the  whole 
engagement  as  "truly  extraordinary."  In  his  support  were  Kate 
Reignolds,  Emily  Mestayer,  and  William  Whalley. 

Edwin,  who  had  been  married  to  Mary  Devlin  and  had  set  up  a 
home  of  his  own  at  Dorchester,  wrote  to  his  friend  Richard  Henry 
Stoddard: 

I  saw  last  night — for  the  first  time — my  brother  act;  he  played 
Pescara — a  bloody  villain  of  the  deepest  red,  you  know,  an  admiral  of 
the  red,  as  'twas,  and  he  presented  him — not  underdone,  but  rare 
enough  for  the  most  fastidious  "beef-eater";  Jno.  Bull  himself  Esquire 
never  looked  more  savagely  at  us  poor  "mudsills"  than  did  J.  Wilkes, 
himself,  Esquire,  settle  the  accounts  of  last  evening.  Yet  I  am  happy 
to  state  that  he  is  full  of  the  true  grit — he  has  stuff  enough  in  him  to 
make  good  suits  for  a  dozen  such  player-folk  as  we  are  cursed  with;  and 
when  time  and  study  round  his  rough  edges  he'll  bid  them  all  "stand 
apart."  . .  .16 

John's  engagement  at  the  Museum  might,  the  Transcript 
judged,  have  been  "continued  with  profit  to  the  management  for 
a  month  to  come  at  least,"  but  he  was  booked  to  appear  in  Phila- 
delphia at  the  Arch  Street  Theatre,  of  which  Mrs.  John  Drew  was 
now  lessee.  He  would  have  opened  there  on  February  23rd,  but  on 

16  As  quoted  in  Otis  Skinner's  "The  Last  Tragedian";  p.  71.  Copyright,  1939,  by 
Dodd,  Mead  &  Company,  Inc.  Used  by  permission  of  the  publishers. 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  91 

the  21st  Mary  Devlin  had  passed  away.  Heading  the  playbill  for 
the  23rd,  a  "Card  to  the  Public"  stated  that  John  had  "felt  the 
necessity  imperative  upon  him  to  join  his  afflicted  Brother."  He 
and  Adam  Badeau  had  been  witnesses  at  the  marriage  in  New 
York  on  July  7th,  i860. 

He  opened  on  March  2nd,  and  continued  for  two  weeks.  In  his 
support  Mrs.  Drew  took  such  parts  as  Portia,  Queen  Gertrude 
("Hamlet"),  Queen  Elizabeth  ("Richard  III"),  and  Lady  Mac- 
beth. ".  .  .  There  is,"  said  the  Press,  "no  reason  why  he  should  not 
become  a  great  actor."  Fastidious  playgoers,  it  declared,  were 
convinced  that  "he  possesses  genius  of  a  high  order,  which  needs 
cultivation  and  development."  Of  his  Richard  the  North  Ameri- 
can noted  that  "every  nerve  quivers  with  the  passion  which  his 
words  give  vent  to;  crime  heaped  on  crime  only  seems  to  afford 
fresh  scope  for  his  determined  will— whilst  the  climax  of  the  play, 
the  fight  between  'Richard'  and  'Richmond,'  was  never  given  with 
such  desperate  energy."  Observing  that  the  resemblance  between 
Edwin  and  John  "is  very  marked,"  the  Press  added: 

Without  having  Edwin's  culture  and  grace,  and  without  that  glitter- 
ing eye,  .  .  .  Mr.  Booth  has  far  more  action,  more  life,  and,  we  are 
inclined  to  think,  more  natural  genius.  He  does  not  play  "Richard  III" 
as  well  as  Edwin,  but  he  plays  some  parts  of  it  in  a  manner  that  we  do 
not  think  Edwin  can  ever  equal.  His  last  act,  and  particularly  his  dying 
scene,  is  a  piece  of  acting  that  few  actors  can  rival,  and  is  far  above  the 
capacity  of  Edwin  Booth. 

At  twenty-four,  John  was  welcomed  as  "a  rising  man"  to  the  stage 
of  Philadelphia. 

It  should  be  obvious  that  this  young  player— not  only  sought 
by  managers  as  "good  box-office"  but  greeted  in  such  fashion  by 
the  press  of  the  leading  theatrical  centers  of  the  East  and  ac- 
claimed by  seasoned  patrons  of  the  drama  in  an  era  of  gifted 
actors— was  not,  as  has  been  misrepresented,  either  a  foolish  tyro 
or  an  empty  swashbuckler.  Indeed,  the  New  York  Herald  speci- 
fied that  he  was  "most  mature,  his  self-possession  extraordinary"; 
the  Times,  that  he  was  "intellectually  impressive";  and  in  Phila- 
delphia the  North  American  added  a  good  word  for  the  "poetic 
spirit"  of  his  Raphael.  In  Boston  he  made  the  greatest  hit  of  any 
actor  of  his  time.  At  twenty-five,  after  but  a  half-dozen  years  on 


92  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

the  stage,  he  had  a  repertoire  of  at  least  a  score  of  leading  parts, 
nine  of  them  Shakespearean— evidence  that  he  could  not  have 
been  exactly  lazy. 

Among  the  people  of  the  theater  his  ability  was  generously 
recognized.  Mrs.  Gilbert  considered  him  "the  most  perfect  Romeo, 
the  finest  I  ever  saw."  To  W.  J.  Ferguson  he  was  "a  marvelously 
clever  and  amusing  demigod."  "We  all  respected  Booth  because 
he  was  a  good  actor,"  said  Helen  Truman  (a  member  of  Ford's 
stock  company  at  Washington).  "As  an  actor,"  maintained  Sir 
Charles  Wyndham,  "the  natural  endowment  of  John  Wilkes 
Booth  was  of  the  highest.  His  original  gift  was  greater  than  that 
of  his  wonderful  brother,  Edwin."  Clara  Morris  ranked  him 
highly,  as  did  Kate  Reignolds.  All  of  these  persons  had  appeared 
with  him.  "Doubtless,"  said  John  T.  Ford,  "he  would  have  made 
the  greatest  actor  of  his  time  had  he  lived."  Ford  had  paid  him 
$700  a  week— a  high  figure  for  those  days— because  he  thought 
him  worth  it.  John's  terms  to  Ben  De  Bar  of  St.  Louis  were: 
"Share  after  $140  per  night,  and  benefit  each  week." 

His  personal  advantages  for  his  profession  were  many.  He  was 
of  medium  height  (a  trifle  short,  perhaps,  for  heroic  characters 
but  somewhat  taller  than  Edwin),  well-knit  and  well-proportioned 
—a  gymnast,  a  swordsman  who  could  take  on  two  opponents  at 
once  and  disarm  both.  His  finely  molded  head,  with  its  classic 
features,  was  surmounted  by  a  profusion  of  wavy  jet-black  hair, 
parted  at  the  back  (in  a  fashion  of  the  period)  and  brought  up 
over  the  ears.  The  large,  expressive  hazel  eyes  were  deeply  set 
under  heavy  lids,  and  the  mobile  face,  with  its  olive  skin,  wore  in 
repose  (as  we  still  see  it  in  photographs)  a  contemplative  look 
that  gives  small  hint  of  the  vivacity,  the  gayety,  the  love  of  fun 
and  practical  joking  with  which  those  who  knew  him  were  well 
acquainted.  Usually  the  mouth  was  largely  hidden  by  a  thick 
mustache  that  in  part  concealed  the  resemblance  to  Edwin. 

Offstage,  John  Booth  seems  to  have  been  pretty  generally  re- 
garded as  a  charming  fellow,  simple  and  direct  in  nature,  gracious 
and  kindly  in  manner,  a  good  listener,  quite  devoid  of  petty 
vanity.  He  frankly  spoke  of  himself  as  lacking  in  flexibility  and 
ease,  and  jested  about  his  rather  large  hands,  broadened  by  exer- 
cise. When  a  group  of  actors  in  Cincinnati  praised  him  for  his 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  93 

Hamlet,  he  quickly  dissented  with  "No!  no,  no!  there's  one  Ham- 
let to  my  mind,  that's  my  brother  Edwin.  You  see,  between  our- 
selves, he  is  Hamlet,  melancholy  and  all!"  His  sister  informs  us 
that  he  had  a  pleasantly  deferential  air  toward  his  elders  and 
would  give  to  bores  and  nuisances  a  patient  ear.  Under  Edwin's 
roof  in  New  York,  Gen.  Adam  Badeau,  who  twice  found  refuge 
there  (once  when  wounded  and  again  after  an  attack  of  camp- 
fever),  thought  John— whom  he  had  never  seen  on  the  stage— 
"very  captivating."  John,  wrote  his  friend  and  manager  John  T. 
Ford,  "was  a  peculiarly  fascinating  man  to  all  who  knew  him 
well." 

Sir  Charles  Wyndham  in  an  interview  told  of  his  meeting  with 
John  Booth  in  1863: 

My  first  part  was  Osric  in  "Hamlet."  During  my  introductory  re- 
hearsal I  wandered  about  the  stage  and  finally  chose  an  advantageous 
position  at  a  little  table  where  I  could  command  a  good  view  of  the 
proceedings.  John  Wilkes  noticed  me  there  and  smiled.  A  few  minutes 
later  the  stage  manager  caught  sight  of  me  and  rushed  up  in  a  great 
state  of  mind.  It  seemed  that  I  had  been  sitting  at  the  star's  table, 
whereas  my  proper  place  was  far  back  in  the  wings.  I  apologized,  of 
course,  but  Booth  didn't  seem  to  mind.  He  spoke  pleasantly  to  me  and 
we  spent  some  minutes  in  conversation. 

The  courtesy  and  kindliness  shown  me  by  John  Wilkes  made  way 
for  friendship  between  us,  and  we  frequently  were  together  after  the 
play.  He  was  a  most  charming  fellow,  off  the  stage  as  well  as  on,  a  man 
of  flashing  wit  and  magnetic  manner.  He  was  one  of  the  best  raconteurs 
to  whom  I  have  ever  listened.17 

When  at  rehearsal  of  a  combat  his  forehead  was  accidentally 
gashed  and  his  eyebrow  cut  through  by  an  actor  named  McCollom, 
John  made  nothing  of  the  injury,  waved  aside  apologies.  In  the 
profession  he  was  open-handed  with  his  money,  liberal  with  his 
time,  frequently  appearing  at  benefit  performances  for  others. 
"The  late  Mrs.  G.  H.  Gilbert,  who  had  acted  with  him,  enter- 
tained a  high  opinion  of  him— a  fact  which  speaks  much  for  his 
good  qualities.  McCullough  liked  him.  So  did  John  S.  Clarke.  So 
did  the  late  Edwin  Varrey,  a  fine  actor  and  one  of  the  best  of 

"Wyndham,  who  had  been  graduated  in  medicine  from  Dublin  University,  came 
to  the  United  States  in  1862  and  was  appointed  military  surgeon  in  the  Federal 
army.  He  had  some  experience  in  amateur  theatricals. 


94  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

men"— thus  William  Winter  in  1915.  An  exception  was  Forrest, 
then  no  longer  in  his  prime  and  unfortunately  envious  of  Edwin 
Booth's  increasing  fame. 

At  a  later  date  John  would  have  been  classed  by  some  as  a 
matinee  idol,  for  ladies  wrote  him  scented  notes  in  plenty  and 
bought  the  carte-de-visite  photographs  of  him  that,  with  the  por- 
traits of  other  stage  favorites,  were  to  be  had  in  many  shops.  To 
Clara  Morris,  who  watched  him  as  he  tore  the  signatures  from  a 
pile  of  unread  billets  doux,  he  lightly  said,  "They  are  harmless 
now,  little  one;  their  sting  lies  in  the  tail."  Catherine  Reignolds- 
Winslow  (Kate  Reignolds),  who  played  leads  with  him  at  the  Bos- 
ton Museum,  said  in  her  "Yesterdays  with  Actors":  "The  stage 
door  was  always  blocked  with  silly  women  waiting  to  catch  a 
glimpse,  as  he  passed,  of  his  superb  face  and  figure."  Women  of 
the  profession  spoke  of  him  fondly  in  after  years.  "He  was  very 
handsome,  most  lovable  and  lovely"— thus  Mrs.  Anne  Gilbert. 
"John  Wilkes  Booth  was  a  gentleman"— so  insisted  Jennie  Gour- 
lay  (Mrs.  Robert  Struthers)  after  half  a  century— "a  high-minded, 
cultured  man.  They  tried  hard  to  make  him  out  a  barroom  loafer, 
though."  Clara  Morris  epitomized  him  as  "so  bright,  so  gay,  so 
kind." 

Naturally  he  had  faults  both  as  actor  and  as  individual.  At 
various  times  the  reviewers  mildly  disapproved  of  his  elocution. 
"Like  Edwin,"  said  one,  "he  occasionally  minces  his  words,  and 
uses  quaint  pronunciation"— which  at  least  put  him  in  good  com- 
pany. One  thought  his  voice  husky  while  another  found  it  low  and 
rich  but  complained  that  he  forced  it  overmuch,  and  a  third 
spoke  of  its  "grand  melody."  A  notice  referred  in  one  breath  to  his 
soliloquies  in  "Richard  III"  as  "of  doubtful  propriety  in  artistic 
view,"  yet  allowed  in  the  next  that  "it  is  Gloster  all  over"— that 
John  has  "fewer  defects,  to  my  mind,  than  any  actor  I  have  seen 
in  the  part  for  many  years."  His  Hamlet  was  said  to  be  less  con- 
sistently excellent  than  his  Richard,  the  scenes  of  intense  mood 
and  hurried  action  far  surpassing  those  of  philosophic  introspec- 
tion—something quite  probable  in  so  young  a  man.  "Mr.  Booth," 
a  critique  ran,  "seems  to  me  too  energetic,  too  positive,  earthly, 
real  and  tangible  for  Hamlet;  yet  I  have  seen  artists  of  great  re- 
pute, who  were  all  these  in  greater  degrees." 


THE  TRUE  JOHN  BOOTH  95 

More  frequently  than  for  anything  else  he  was  censured  for 
extravagances— for  boisterousness,  and  in  general  for  what  Wil- 
liam Winter  called  "violent  demeanor."  His  was  the  kind  of  in- 
tensity that  had  made  Edmund  Kean  famous.  We  read  of  the  last 
act  of  his  Richard  as  "a  tornado  of  rapid  execution,  hurrying  the 
spectator  along,  with  resistless  power."  We  happen  upon  allusions 
to  his  "Mephistophelian  sneer"  and  "demoniac  glare"  that  "fairly 
curdle  the  blood."  It  was  a  sort  of  thing  in  which  theatrical  audi- 
ences had  long  delighted,  and  John  Booth  was  fitted  to  sustain  it. 
"He  added,"  John  T.  Ford  said,  "a  fine  physical  organization  to 
his  marvelous  mental  powers." 

But  there  were  those  who  thought  him  sometimes  too  gory  and 
too  acrobatic  for  their  taste— and  taste  was  gradually  shifting  away 
from  drama  like  Schiller's  "Robbers,"  which  has  been  described 
as  "bloody  enough  to  satisfy  the  appetite  of  a  cannibal."  "In  the 
scene  in  'Macbeth'  where  he  entered  the  den  of  the  witches,"  J.  T. 
Ford  related,  "Booth  would  not  content  himself  with  the  usual 
steps  to  reach  the  stage,  but  had  a  ledge  of  rocks  some  ten  or 
twelve  feet  high  erected  in  their  stead,  down  which  he  sprang  upon 
the  stage."  This  leap— nearly  from  the  top  of  the  scene— he  made 
with  apparent  ease,  but  it  was  considered  unbecomingly  agile 
in  the  Thane  of  Glamis  and  wholly  beside  the  mark.  Kate  Reign- 
olds  wrote: 

He  told  me  that  he  generally  slept  smothered  in  steak  or  oysters  to 
cure  his  own  bruises  after  Richard  the  Third,  because  he  necessarily 
got  as  good  as  he  gave — in  fact  more,  for  though  an  excellent  swords- 
man, in  his  blind  passion  he  constantly  cut  himself.  How  he  threw  me 
about!  once  even  knocked  me  down,  picking  me  up  again  with  a  regret 
as  quick  as  his  dramatic  impulse  had  been  vehement.  .  .  . 

...  In  the  last  scene  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  one  night,  I  vividly  recall 
how  the  buttons  on  his  cuff  caught  my  hair,  and  in  trying  to  tear  them 
out  he  trod  on  my  dress  and  rent  it  so  as  to  make  it  utterly  useless 
afterward;  and  in  his  last  struggle  literally  shook  me  out  of  my  shoes! 
The  curtain  fell  on  Romeo  with  a  sprained  thumb,  a  good  deal  of  hair 
on  his  sleeve,  Juliet  in  rags  and  two  white  satin  shoes  lying  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  stage! 

John's  artistic  faults  were  of  course  due  in  part  to  a  lack  of  early 
education,  proper  dramatic  schooling,  adequate  discipline,  and 
extended  apprenticeship.  At  Richmond  the  company  seems  to 


96  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

have  included  no  players  from  whose  style  he  could  derive  any 
particular  instruction,  and  dramatic  criticism  in  the  local  press 
was  negligible.  From  Richmond  he  went  out  prematurely  as  a 
star,  going  first  to  the  South,  where,  as  Asia  Booth  says,  not  only 
were  his  successes  magnified  but  "even  his  errors  were  extolled." 
Edwin  helped  build  the  ladder  by  which  he  rose  from  "Ethiopian" 
banjo-strummer  to  the  "Prince  of  Players."  He  fought  his  fight 
against  defects  of  will  and  taints  of  blood.  "Much  of  my  life's 
struggle,"  he  said,  "has  been  with  myself,  and  the  pains  I  have  en- 
dured in  overcoming  and  correcting  the  evils  of  my  untrained 
disposition  have  been  very  great."  It  seemed  that  John's  ladder 
was  obligingly  let  down  from  the  clouds;  he  climbed  with  reck- 
less ease  but  without  control  or  purpose.  His  sister  assures  us  that 
he  yearned  for  criticism,  no  matter  how  severe,  if  just.  Possibly  so. 
It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  he  sought  to  profit  by  the  criti- 
cisms he  received,  and  not  all  of  them  could  have  been  unjust. 

Growing  more  vehement,  more  headstrong,  he  became  as  extrav- 
agant off  the  stage  as  he  often  was  upon  it.  "He  was  ever  spoiled 
and  petted,  and  left  to  his  unrestrained  will,"  Kate  Reignolds 
regretfully  sets  down.  "He  succeeded  in  gaining  position  by  flashes 
of  genius,  and  the  necessity  of  ordinary  study  had  not  been  borne 
in  upon  him.  No  life  could  have  been  worse  for  such  a  character 
than  that  of  an  actor."  18 

One  who  admired  him  and  saw  in  him  great  potentialities 
said:  "Let  us  hope  that  he  will  subside,  by  degrees,  into  his  proper 
self,  and  become  the  fine  intellectual  artist  he  has  evidently  the 
gifts  to  be." 

18  "Yesterdays  with  Actors";  p.  142. 


Fi 


Ve       •        •  "A  TURN  TOWARDS  THE  EVIL' 


IT  was  in  April  1863  that  John  Booth  played  his  first  engage- 
ment in  the  Washington  City  with  whose  name  his  own  was  to  be 
so  darkly  united.  In  Philadelphia,  as  in  Boston  and  New  York,  a 
devoted  following  waited  eagerly  to  hail  his  return.  Audiences 
were  keener,  heartier,  more  demonstrative  then  than  now;  and 
probably  no  other  young  actor  had  ever  left  behind  him  more 
good  will  among  American  playgoers.  At  his  benefits  they  stood 
in  the  aisles  (for  there  were  no  ordinances  about  such  matters, 
and  house  rules  were  lax).  After  the  play  they  would  argue  with 
one  another  as  to  whether  John  or  Edwin  were  the  greater;  and 
they  were  likely  to  determine  that  whereas  Edwin  might  be  Ham- 
let, John  equally  was  Gloster. 

So  the  playbills  of  Grover's  Theatre  for  Saturday,  April  11th, 
1863,  broke  into  a  great  flourish  of  display  type  to  herald  the  ad- 
vent of  ''The  Pride  of  the  American  People,  The  Youngest  Trage- 
dian In  The  World!  Who  Is  Entitled  To  Be  Denominated  A 
Star  of  the  First  Magnitude!"  The  play  was  "Richard  III,"  with 
Susan  Denin  as  Queen  Elizabeth  and  J.  M.  Ward  as  Richmond. 
Historians  of  the  National  Theatre  (Grover's)  state  not  only  that 
a  "very  large  and  fashionable  audience"  was  present  but  that 
President  Lincoln  was  there,  with  Governor  Oliver  P.  Morton  of 
Indiana  as  his  guest.1  As  announced,  the  engagement  was  for 
seven  nights  only,  the  repertoire  for  the  ensuing  week  comprising 
"The  Marble  Heart,"  "Hamlet,"  "The  Lady  of  Lyons,"  "Money," 
"The  Merchant  of  Venice"  (with  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew"  as 
an  afterpiece). 

1  Hunter  and  Polkinhorn,  "A  Record  of  Fifty  Years";  p.  47. 

97 


98  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

It  was  at  that  time  that  Charles  Wyndham  (afterward  Sir 
Charles,  and  a  rare  comedian),  who  was  enjoying  an  interlude  of 
acting  before  returning  to  his  post  as  army  surgeon,  struck  up  a 
friendship  with  Booth,  who  was  one  year  his  junior.  After  a  life- 
time's experience  of  the  stage,  he  said  decisively  of  John:2 

A  marvellous  man.  He  was  one  of  the  few  to  whom  that  ill-used  term 
of  genius  might  be  applied  with  perfect  truth.  His  dramatic  powers 
were  of  the  best.  They  were  untutored,  untrained.  He  lacked  the  qual- 
ity of  the  student  that  Edwin  possessed,  but  the  artist  was  there. 

From  Wyndham  we  learn  that  John's  conception  of  Hamlet  as  a 
mad  prince  throughout  was  "fiery"  and  "convincing." 

Booth's  reception  was  so  encouraging  that  he  decided  to  lease 
the  Washington  Theatre  (which  perpetually  was  changing  man- 
agers and  at  this  time  was  dark)  and  present  his  own  "new  and 
superior"  company.  John  T.  Ford's  theater,  on  the  east  side  of 
Tenth  Street,  between  E  and  F,  had  been  destroyed  by  fire  on 
December  30th,  1862,  and  the  new  building  had  not  yet  been 
completed,  else  John  might  have  appeared  there.  Alice  Grey  and 
E.  H.  Brink  headed  the  support.  Of  John's  performance  as  Rich- 
ard on  the  opening  night,  the  Intelligencer  said:  "The  effect 
produced  upon  the  audience  was  absolutely  startling  and  bordered 
nearly  upon  the  terrible."  3  The  repertoire  for  the  two  weeks 
(April  27th  to  May  9th)  included  Sheil's  "The  Apostate,"  Selby's 
"The  Marble  Heart,"  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  "The  Corsican  Broth- 
ers," and  "Macbeth";  and  two  nights  were  relinquished  to  J. 
Grau's  Italian-opera  troupe. 

"J.  W.  Booth,"  the  Intelligencer  descanted,  "has  that  which  is 
the  grand  constituent  of  all  truly  great  acting,  intensity."  It  said 
that  he  played  "not  from  stage  rule,  but  from  his  soul,  and  his 
soul  is  inspired  with  genius." 

In  the  autumn— from  Monday,  November  2nd  to  Saturday, 
November  14th— he  was  at  Ford's  New  Theatre,  which  had  been 
opened  on  August  26th  with  considerable  fanfare  and  the  pious 
hope  that  it  might  become  "the  accepted  home  of  the  Muses  in 
Washington."  Announced  as  "the  gifted  Tragedian"  and  "the 

3  New  York  Herald,  June  27,  1909. 
3  April  28;  p.  1. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  99 

youngest  'Star'  Actor  in  the  World,"  he  played  a  two  weeks'  en- 
gagement in  a  series  of  his  best  parts,  backed  by  Ford's  admirable 
stock  company.  On  the  9th,  the  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  took 
four  guests,  including  Nicolay  and  Hay,  in  a  box  party  to  see 
"The  Marble  Heart,"  which  the  somewhat  finical  Hay  character- 
ized as  "rather  tame  than  otherwise."  Whatever  else  might  have 
been  said  of  John  Booth  as  an  actor,  few  probably  would  have 
elected  to  call  him  "tame." 

On  March  14th,  1864,  he  opened  in  New  Orleans  at  the  St. 
Charles  (the  "Old  Drury")  in  his  bravura  part  of  Richard.  The 
Picayune's  reviewer  found  he  exhibited  "that  subtlety  which  was 
so  prominent  in  Gloster"  and  that  "in  the  Tent  scene,  on  waking 
from  his  horrible  dream,  his  acting  was  remarkably  fine."  ("We 
cannot  imagine  a  more  terrible  picture  of  phrenzied  guilt.")  The 
True  Delta's  critic  felt  that  "if  his  powerful  delineation  of  the 
'bloody-minded  Gloster'  is  to  be  taken  as  a  sample  of  his  ability, 
then  we  cheerfully  add  our  mite  of  admiration  to  the  general 
praise  and  commendation  his  efforts  have  met  wherever  he  has 
appeared."  He  continued: 

In  physique,  Mr.  Booth  is  greatly  the  superior  of  his  brother  Edwin, 
being  a  much  handsomer  and  larger  man,  and  in  no  other  particular 
that  we  could  discern  last  night  is  he  at  all  inferior  to  that  eminent  and 
much  admired  actor.  ...  In  the  tent  scene  and  on  the  ensanguined 
field  of  Bosworth,  he  was  absolutely  horrifying,  and  while  looking  at 
him  we  could  well  conceive  of  the  truth  of  the  story  that  is  told  of  Lord 
Byron,  who,  as  the  chronicler  tells  us,  was  so  overcome  by  Kean's  acting 
of  Sir  Giles  Overreach  as  to  faint  away  in  his  box. 

As  the  usage  was  in  New  Orleans,  Booth  played  on  Sunday 
nights,  and  this  was  additionally  taxing.  Excepting  March  26th 
and  27th,  he  appeared  nightly  through  April  3rd.  In  its  final 
notice  the  Picayune  said: 

Actors  are  not  over  prone  to  praise  each  other,  but  we  have  heard  a 
good  actor  say  that  J.  Wilkes  Booth  had  quite  as  decided  theatrical 
talent  as  any  member  of  his  talented  family.  It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that 
a  physical  disability  (we  trust  temporary)  prevented  his  engagement 
from  being  so  gratifying  to  himself  or  to  his  friends  as  was  desirable, 
and  we  look  for  his  return  here  next  season  under  more  favorable 
auspices. 

The   "disability"   was  a  persistent  bronchial   hoarseness   that 


ioo  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

seems  to  have  made  his  utterance  labored  and  occasionally  in- 
distinct. (Blurred  and  husky  speech  was  not  yet  esteemed  a  virtue 
on  the  American  stage.) 

At  Boston,  where  on  April  25th  John  opened  his  third  Museum 
engagement,  the  Transcript  of  the  27th  reported: 

Mr.  Booth  played  the  part  of  "Evelyn"  at  the  Museum  last  evening, 
with  a  tact,  grace  and  appreciation  of  the  character  such  as  few  but 
himself  can  exhibit  upon  the  stage,  the  only  drawback  being  the  cold 
which  restrains  his  voice.  The  company,  too,  put  their  best  feet  fore- 
most, and  the  large  audience  was  kept  in  excellent  humor  throughout 
the  evening. 

The  Post  of  the  28th  said: 

Crowded  houses  have  thus  far  attended  the  performances  of  J.  Wilkes 
Booth  and  this  notwithstanding  the  prevalence  of  a  severe  storm  from 
the  very  commencement  of  his  engagement.  Seats  are  in  demand  for  a 
week  ahead,  and  there  is  every  indication  that  his  present  visit  to  Bos- 
ton will  be  crowned  with  even  greater  success  than  any  heretofore  made. 

We  hear  no  more  of  the  cold,  and  the  engagement  (which  the 
Transcript  of  May  14th  described  as  "very  successful")  ran  to 
five  weeks,  giving  "much  satisfaction  to  the  admirers  of  this 
gifted  young  actor."  It  has  been  gratuitously  stated  that  John 
Booth  retired  from  the  stage  because  of  the  sudden  loss  of  both 
his  voice  and  his  popularity.  This  is  obviously  contradicted  by 
the  evidence  we  have. 

In  the  diary  of  Attorney-General  Edward  Bates4  is  preserved 
a  "sharp  hit"  attributed  to  Julia  Ward  Howe,  who  had  just  ar- 
rived from  Boston  (where  John  was  in  the  fourth  week  of  his 
engagement)  and  was  giving  a  course  of  lectures  in  Washington. 
The  story  was  that  Mrs.  Howe  said  to  Charles  Sumner: 

"Mr.  Sumner,  have  you  heard  young  Booth  yet?  He's  a  man 
of  fine  talents  and  noble  hopes  in  his  profession." 

"Why,  n-no,  madam,"  Sumner  replied.  "I  long  since  ceased  to 
take  any  interest  in  individuals/' 

Mrs.  Howe's  retort  was:  "You  have  made  great  progress,  sir. 
God  has  not  yet  gone  so  far— at  least  according  to  the  last  ac- 
counts!" 

4  Under  the  entry  for  Thursday,  May  20,  1864. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  101 

On  Friday,  November  25th,  1864,  occurred  what  was  prob- 
ably the  most  brilliant  theatrical  affair  New  York  had  known 
up  to  that  time.  This  was  the  second  benefit  in  aid  of  a  fund  for 
a  statue  of  Shakespeare  in  the  Central  Park,  where  the  bronze  by 
J.  Q.  A.  Ward  was  placed  at  the  lower  end  of  the  Mall  in  1872. 
The  performance  was  of  "Julius  Caesar"  and  was  given  at  the 
Winter  Garden,  then  managed  by  William  Stuart.  The  date  was 
noteworthy  in  more  ways  than  one.  It  was  Evacuation  Day,  an- 
niversary of  the  day  in  1786  when  the  British  quit  New  York— a 
day  now  largely  forgotten  but  still  remembered  in  1864.  On  that 
night  Confederate  agents  attempted  to  fire  New  York.  On  that 
night  the  three  Booths— Junius  II,  Edwin,  and  John— appeared 
together  for  the  only  time  in  their  lives.  On  the  next  evening, 
at  the  same  theater,  Edwin  began  his  famous  run  of  one  hundred 
nights  as  Hamlet. 

For  this  "Julius  Caesar,"  prices  were  advanced  to  $5  for  the 
orchestra,  $1.50  for  the  parquet  and  orchestra  circle,  $1  for  the 
family  circle— figures  so  high  in  those  days  that  Stuart  thought 
it  best  to  remind  his  public  that  "in  addition  to  the  value  they 
receive  in  intellectual  enjoyment,  they  are  contributing  to  a 
great  national  work,  and  not  to  the  personal  advantage  of  any 
individual."  The  World  of  the  28th  said:  "The  house  was  packed 
full,  and  the  treasurer  obtained  the  handsome  sum  of  nearly  four 
thousand  dollars   (so  reported)  for  the  monument  fund." 

"The  audience,"  declared  the  Times  of  the  26th,  "was  fairly 
carried  by  storm  from  the  first  entrance  of  the  three  brothers 
side  by  side  in  their  respective  parts.  Brutus  [Edwin]  was  individ- 
ualized with  great  force  and  distinctness— Cassius  [Junius  II]  was 
brought  out  equally  well— and  if  there  was  less  of  real  personality 
given  to  Mark  Anthony  [John],  the  fault  was  rather  in  the  part 
than  in  the  actor." 

Mary  Ann  Booth  was  there,  a  happy  witness  of  this  unique 
conjunction;  and  Asia  was  there,  fancying  that  Edwin  "trembled 
a  little  for  his  own  laurels"  and  hearing  a  Southern  voice  de- 
lightedly exclaim,  "Our  Wilkes  looks  like  a  young  god!"  At  the 
beginning  of  the  second  act— the  scene  in  Brutus'  orchard— the 
cry  of  "Fire!"  was  raised.  A  panic  seemed  imminent,  but  Edwin, 


102  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

coming  down  to  the  footlights,  gave  assurance  that  there  was  no 
danger,  that  the  theater  was  not  on  fire.  The  performance  was 
resumed  and  only  a  few  persons  left  the  house. 

The  alarm  had  come  from  the  adjoining  Lafarge  House.  In- 
cendiaries sent  by  Confederate  representatives  in  Canada  endeav- 
ored to  start  fires  in  Barnum's  Museum  and  in  a  number  of 
hotels,  where  a  mixture  of  turpentine  and  phosphorus  was  put  in 
mattresses  and  bedclothes.  In  a  few  instances,  especially  at  the  St. 
Nicholas,  considerable  damage  was  done,  but  not  at  the  Lafarge. 
One  of  the  incendiaries,  Robert  Kennedy,  was  later  arrested  and 
hanged.  In  his  confession  he  stated  that  he  was  a  Confederate 
prisoner  who  had  escaped  from  Johnson's  Island  (in  Lake  Erie) 
to  Canada,  that  eight  men  were  employed  for  firing  the  city. 
It  was  to  have  been  done  on  the  night  of  the  Presidential  election 
but  the  phosphorus  was  not  ready.  The  intention  was,  he  said,  to 
destroy  property,  although  everybody  was  of  course  aware  that 
lives  might  be  lost.  "We  wanted  to  let  the  people  of  the  North 
understand  that  there  are  two  sides  to  this  war,  and  they  can't 
be  rolling  in  wealth  and  comfort  while  we  at  the  South  are  bear- 
ing all  the  hardships  and  privations."  The  combustible  material 
was  defective  and  the  work  was  botched— otherwise  there  might 
have  been  what  Kennedy  styled  "a  huge  joke  on  the  fire  depart- 
ment." 

John's  appearance  in  this  special  performance  of  "Julius 
Caesar"  was  his  last  upon  the  New  York  stage.  On  November  gth 
he  had  established  headquarters  at  the  National  Hotel  in  Wash- 
ington, where  with  intervals  of  absence— usually  for  a  few  days, 
sometimes  for  nearly  a  month— he  continued  to  stay.  At  the  "adieu 
benefit"  of  the  "celebrated  Tragic  Artiste"  Miss  Avonia  Jones  on 
January  20th,  1865,  at  Grover's,  John,  advertised  as  "the  Favorite 
Tragedian,"  played  Romeo  to  the  lady's  Juliet.  On  March  18th, 
1865,  when  "The  Apostate"  was  given  for  the  benefit  of  his 
friend  John  McCullough,  he  was  billed  as  "The  Eminent  Young 
American  Tragedian"  who  would  "render  his  Great  Character  of 
Pescara!"  Miss  Alice  Grey  was  the  Florinda,  McCullough  the 
Hemeya,  and  Charles  B.  Bishop  the  Caleb  Scrimmidge. 

Booth  agreed  to  play  for  the  benefit  of  Harry  Ford,  John  T. 
Ford's  brother  and  treasurer  of  Ford's  Theatre— but  he  never  did. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  103 

He  appeared  but  once  more  on  any  stage,  and  then  in  a  new 
role,  more  startling  than  Pescara  or  Richard.  He  did  not  retire 
from  the  stage;  he  was  drawn  away  from  it.  His  professional  life 
no  longer  constrained  him  as  it  had  done.  Though  managers 
sought  him,  other  interests  claimed  him.  He  must  have  disregarded 
or  broken  a  promise  to  go  to  Chicago,  for  on  Christmas  Day  of 
1864  J.  H.  McVicker  of  McVicker's  Theatre  wrote  him: 

What  do  you  say  to  filling  three  weeks  with  me,  May  29th?  I  have  not 
yet  filled  your  time  in  January,  and  see  no  chance  of  doing  so  with  an 
attraction  equal  to  yourself.  There  are  plenty  of  little  fish  but  I  don't 
want  them  if  I  can  help  it.  So,  if  you  can  come  then,  come  at  the  above 
date. 

John  did  not  go  in  May,  either— and  there  was  reason  why. 

Among  his  concerns  had  been  the  investment  of  some  of  his 
earnings.  In  December  1863  or  January  1864  he  had  begun  to 
acquire  land  in  the  oil  region  of  Pennsylvania.  He  added  to  his 
holdings  until  by  September  1864  he  had  (according  to  Joseph 
H.  Simonds,  who  had  become  his  agent)  invested  $6,000.  Those 
who  wish  may  find  in  P.  T.  Barnum's  "Humbugs  of  the  World" 
contemporary  sidelights  on  the  trickery  and  fraud  that  almost 
from  its  inception  were  associated  with  the  "oil  business."  While 
"Petroleumania"  was  at  its  height,  newspapers  were  flooded  with 
advertisements,  most  of  them  questionable,  of  oil  companies  with 
all  sorts  of  irrelevant  names  and  all  kinds  of  fictitious  claims.  John 
conveyed  the  impression  that  his  undertakings  in  oil  were  highly 
profitable.  Asia  had  that  idea,  and  John  T.  Ford  said:  "He  had 
given  out  that  he  had  made  a  great  deal  of  money  in  oil  specula- 
tion, and  I  suppose  he  had,  for  he  showed  me  a  pamphlet— a  sort 
of  prospectus  of  oil  property  for  sale— in  which  it  was  mentioned 
that  the  land  adjoined  the  very  successful  property  of  J.  Wilkes 
Booth."  5  Simonds  admitted  on  the  witness  stand,  however,  that 
Booth  never  realized  a  dollar  from  properties  in  the  oil  region. 
His  speculations,  the  agent  said,  were  a  total  loss.  He  also  pur- 
chased some  real  estate  in  Boston.6 

In  November   1864  he  was  down  in  Charles  County,  Lower 

BIn  an  interview  with  Col.  Frank  A.  Burr.  See  the  Philadelphia  Press,  Dec.  4, 
1881;  pp.  1-2. 
6  See  Poore's  report,  "The  Conspiracy  Trial";  vol.  i,  pp.  39-42. 


104  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Maryland,  where  he  called  on  Dr.  William  Queen,  who  lived 
four  or  five  miles  south  of  Bryantown,  and  to  whom  he  presented 
a  letter  of  introduction  from  one  P.  C.  Martin,  a  Baltimore 
liquor  dealer.  Martin  had  left  Baltimore  for  Montreal,  where  he 
combined  note-shaving  with  the  running  of  supplies  through  the 
Federal  blockade.  Booth  inquired  about  farm  properties  in 
Charles  County;  and  from  what  he  said  of  his  tidy  profits  in  oil, 
it  was  devoutly  hoped  that  he  would  put  his  surplus  cash  into 
acreage  there.  Slavery  was  ended,  labor  was  hard  to  get,  and  land- 
owners were  willing  to  dispose  of  parcels  at  from  $50  to  as  low 
as  $5  an  acre. 

At  Bryantown  church  he  was  casually  introduced  to  Dr.  Samuel 
A.  Mudd,  who  lived  on  the  road  from  Bryantown  to  Queen's 
and  at  whose  house  he  passed  a  night.  There  was  a  surfeit  of  doc- 
tors thereabouts,  and  Mudd,  though  he  had  a  small  practice,  de- 
voted most  of  his  time  to  farming.  Booth  seems  to  have  made 
promises  to  Mudd  and  to  a  Dr.  W.  T.  Bowman,  but  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  actually  bought  any  land.  He  did  buy  from  a 
neighbor  of  Mudd's  a  dark-bay  saddle  horse,  blind  of  one  eye. 

In  Washington  he  kept  as  many  as  three  saddle  horses  at  livery 
stables,  the  charge  being  a  dollar  a  day  for  each  horse.  The  ani- 
mals were  usually  at  the  disposal  of  friends.  Behind  Ford's 
Theatre  was  a  typical  Washington  "public"  alley,  about  forty 
feet  wide,  opening  on  F  Street.  Negro  families  lived  on  this  alley, 
and  there  were  also  stables,  one  of  which  Booth  rented  from  a 
Mrs.  Davis.  He  had  this  fitted  up  with  two  stalls  and  kept  in  it 
first  a  saddle  horse,  later  a  driving  horse  and  a  buggy.  He  paid 
Burroughs  (known  as  "Peanuts"),  the  stage  doorman,  to  feed  and 
clean  the  horse,  and  Edman  Spangler,7  a  scene  shifter  and  assist- 
ant carpenter,  to  do  odd  jobs,  such  as  hitching  up.  All  the  em- 
ployees of  the  theater  knew  him  and  he  had  access  to  the  building 
by  all  the  entrances,  coming  and  going  as  he  wished— passing 
behind  the  scenes,  into  the  greenroom,  anywhere. 

His  mail  was  addressed  to  the  office,  where  he  would  call  for 
it  each  morning  when  he  was  in  town.  John  T.  Ford,  who  or- 
dinarily came  down  from  Baltimore  three  times  a  week,  said  that 

7Spangler's  name  has  almost  invariably  been  given  as  Edward,  but  that  appears 
to  be  incorrect.  Spangler  was  a  Pennsylvania  "Dutchman,"  originally  from  York. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  105 

he  was  used  to  seeing  John  in  or  near  the  theater  at  some  hour 
during  the  day.  Nearly  everybody  about  the  place  liked  him.  "He 
had  such  a  winning  way,"  said  one  of  them  afterward. 

It  was  but  a  short  walk  to  Ford's  from  the  National  Hotel.  This 
was  one  of  Washington's  better  hostelries  and,  being  handy  to 
the  Capitol,  was  the  home  of  numerous  Solons  and  their  families. 
Its  bar  was  approved,  and  upholstered  ladies  a  la  derniere  mode, 
with  their  intricate  coiffures,  haunted  its  Victorian  parlors.  Fa- 
vored by  Southerners  before  the  war,  it  was  still  a  resort  of  Balti- 
moreans.  Its  "hops"  were  well  known  and  largely  attended,  and 
John  Booth,  one  of  its  notable  guests,  was  often  present  at  these 
social  events.  It  was  said  that  now  and  then  at  soirees  he  was 
prevailed  upon  to  recite  from  the  copious  stores  of  verse  he  had 
industriously  memorized  in  his  nonage. 

Among  those  residing  at  the  National  were  the  Hales  of  New 
Hampshire.  John  P.  Hale,  a  senator  from  that  state,  had  twice 
been  the  Free  Soil  party's  nominee  for  the  Presidency,  and  against 
him  Foote  of  Mississippi,  an  ardent  duelist,  had  vented  spleen 
in  these  words: 

I  invite  him  to  Mississippi  and  will  tell  him  beforehand,  in  all  hon- 
esty, that  he  could  not  go  ten  miles  into  the  interior  before  he  would 
grace  one  of  the  tallest  trees  of  the  forest  with  a  rope  around  his  neck, 
with  the  approbation  of  every  honest  and  patriotic  citizen;  and  that,  if 
necessary,  I  should  myself  assist  in  the  operation. 

Hale  should  be  remembered  for  his  plea  in  the  case  of  the  fugi- 
tive Shadrach  (arrested  in  Boston  in  1851),  in  which  he  said:  "The 
mere  breath  of  the  slave-catcher's  mouth  turns  a  man  into  an- 
other man's  chattel!  Suppose  John  De  Bree  had  said  that  he  owned 
the  moon,  or  the  stars,  or  had  an  exclusive  right  to  the  sunshine, 
would  you  find  it  so  by  your  verdict?  But,  gentlemen,  the  stars 
shall  fade  and  fall  from  heaven;  the  moon  shall  grow  old  and 
decay;  the  heavens  themselves  shall  pass  away  as  a  scroll— but  the 
soul  of  the  despised  Shadrach  shall  live  on  with  the  life  of  God 
himself!  I  wonder  if  John  De  Bree  will  say  he  owns  him  then!" 
John  Booth  knew  the  Hales,  who  were  described  in  the  New  York 
Tribune  as  "remarkable  for  culture,  intellect,  and  every  form  of 
attractiveness."  The  Misses  Hale— Lucy  Lambert  and  Elizabeth, 
called  Lizzie  or  Bessie— were  much  in  his  company  at  the  hotel, 


106  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

and  the  town  often  saw  him  as  their  escort.  He  was  indeed,  as 
John  T.  Ford  wrote,  "caressed  and  flattered  by  the  best  people 
of  Washington." 

Stage  people  were  naturally  among  his  friends— McCullough, 
whose  stopping  place  was  always  the  National  and  whom  he 
highly  regarded  as  actor  and  man;  John  Matthews  of  Ford's  stock 
company;  E.  A.  Emerson,  also  of  Ford's— in  fact,  he  seems  to  have 
been  on  good  terms  with  them  all.  He  had  other  acquaintances, 
too.  In  October  1864  the  Surratts  came  to  Washington.  Mary  E. 
Surratt,  a  personable  widow  of  forty-five  who  had  managed  a  farm 
and  a  village  inn  at  Surrattsville  in  Prince  George's  County 
(Lower  Maryland),  rented  the  place  to  John  M.  Lloyd  and  opened 
a  boarding-house  in  the  dwelling  at  541  H  Street.8  In  addition  to 
Miss  Anna  Surratt  and  her  brother  John  (then  about  twenty-one), 
the  regular  household  consisted  of  several  boarders,  including  a 
Miss  Honora  Fitzpatrick  and  one  Louis  J.  Weichmann,9  a  clerk 
in  the  office  of  the  commissary-general  of  prisoners.  Transients 
were  also  received  at  Mrs.  Surratt's  convenience.  Booth  met  John 
Surratt  and  after  that  he  was  a  frequent  caller  at  the  Surratt  home. 
He  seems  to  have  been  generous  with  theater  tickets,  and  Miss 
Surratt  and  Miss  Fitzpatrick  each  bought  a  photograph  of  him 
at  a  "Daguerrean  gallery."  The  suggestion,  made  by  inventive 
writers,  of  a  "romance"  between  Mrs.  Surratt  and  Booth  is  quite 
absurd.  John  Surratt  wrote  in  a  letter  to  a  New  York  cousin: 

I  have  just  taken  a  peep  in  the  parlor.  Would  you  like  to  know  what 
I  saw  there?  Well,  Ma  was  sitting  on  the  sofa,  nodding  first  to  one 
chair,  then  to  another,  next  the  piano.  Anna  sitting  in  a  corner,  dream- 
ing, I  expect,  of  J.  W.  Booth.  .  .  .  Miss  Fitzpatrick  playing  with  her 
favorite  cat.  .  .  . 

But  hark!  the  door-bell  rings,  and  Mr.  J.  W.  Booth  is  announced. 
And  listen  to  the  scamperings  of  the .  Such  brushing  and  fixing.10 

Through  a  certified  memorandum  of  dates  on  the  National's 
register  we  know  that  Booth  was  often  away  from  Washington. 

8  Surrattsville  (now  Clinton)  lay  about  thirteen  miles  from  Washington.  The 
H  Street  residence  was  near  Sixth  Street.  Its  number,  like  many  other  Washington 
street  numbers  of  the  period,  was  afterward  changed. 

9  He  spelled  the  name  Wiechman  but  the  incorrect  form  became  fixed  in  the 
record -See  "Surratt  Trial";  vol.  i,  p.  369. 

"Baker,  "History  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service";  pp.  562-563. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  107 

He  checked  out  and  in,  not  holding  any  particular  room,  and 
the  entries  disclose  many  absences  of  from  two  to  ten  days.  Twice 
he  was  out  of  town  longer— from  November  16th  to  December 
12th,  1864,  and  from  January  28th  to  February  22nd,  1865.  The 
register  did  not  show  brief  trips,  such  as,  for  example,  to  Charles 
County  (where  he  is  known  to  have  been  once  in  December  1864 
and  undoubtedly  was  at  other  times),  or  to  Baltimore.  There 
was  then  no  railway  in  Lower  Maryland,  but  it  was  only  about 
twenty  miles  from  Washington  to  Charles  County's  northern  bor- 
der, and  Booth  had  horses. 

Train  service  permitted  him  to  spend  a  long  day  in  Baltimore, 
only  forty  miles  distant,  and  to  return  at  night  if  he  wished.  He 
frequented  Barnum's  City  Hotel  (where  he  sometimes  took  a 
room)  and  Guy's  restaurant,  across  the  street,  and  met  his  old 
friends,  including  Sam  Arnold  and  Michael  O'Laughlin.  These 
two  belonged  to  families  that  had  been  in  Baltimore  for  years, 
and  John  had  known  them  from  boyhood.  Each  had  been  a 
schoolmate  of  his— O'Laughlin  in  Baltimore,  Arnold  at  Catons- 
ville.  Both  had  been  in  the  Confederate  army,  and  O'Laughlin 
had  subsequently  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance.  Arnold  was  un- 
employed, dividing  his  time  between  his  home  in  Baltimore  and 
that  of  his  brother  William  at  Hookstown,  six  miles  distant.  The 
O'Laughlin  home  was  at  57  North  Exeter  Street,  opposite  the 
Booth  town  house,  the  property  being  owned  by  Mary  Ann  Booth. 
Michael  was  intermittently  in  Washington,  where  he  took  orders 
for  his  brother,  a  feed-and-produce  merchant  in  Baltimore. 

Baltimore  swarmed  with  irreconcilables  to  whom  the  existence 
of  martial  law  (which  such  as  they  had  made  necessary)  was  an 
unforgivable  affront.  When  Gen.  Lew  Wallace  took  command  of 
the  Middle  Department,  8th  Army  Corps,  on  March  22nd,  1864, 
he  was  not  long  in  discovering  that,  even  at  that  late  period  of  the 
war,  conditions  in  the  Monument  City  were  bad.  Maj.  H.  B. 
Smith,  assistant  provost  marshal-general  and  chief  of  detectives, 
had  under  his  direction  a  corps  of  forty  men  and  women,  and 
they  were  none  too  many.  "Blockade-running  schemes  were,"  he 
wrote,  "without  limit  as  to  variety  or  manner  of  evasion."  Men 
made  a  business  of  taking  recruits  to  the  Southern  army.  Military 
intelligence  brought  from  Washington  was  relayed  to  the  Confed- 


108  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

erates.  Sloops  and  yawls  braved  the  Federal  patrol  to  land  con- 
traband in  Virginia. 

In  Charles  and  St.  Mary's  Counties,  Lower  Maryland,  stores 
from  Baltimore  were  hidden  in  cellars,  haystacks,  and  barns, 
later  to  be  forwarded  across  the  Potomac.  Baltimoreans  received 
and  aided  Confederate  spies,  who,  according  to  Major  Smith, 
would  readily  pose  as  deserters  and  take  the  oath  of  allegiance 
at  Department  headquarters.  Federal  clerks  who  lived  in  Balti- 
more's rooming-houses  had  to  be  guarded  in  their  remarks,  for 
anything  useful  was  likely  to  find  its  way  to  the  Confederate 
authorities.11 

Mails  passed  regularly  through  Charles  County  between  Balti- 
more and  Richmond.  They  were  sent  to,  and  collected  from, 
Bryantown  (or  sometimes  Charlotte  Hall)  and  reached  the  Poto- 
mac about  twilight.  On  the  Maryland  side  the  official  agent  was 
Thomas  A.  Jones,  a  farmer  whose  house  stood  near  the  mouth  of 
Pope's  Creek,  high  above  the  Potomac  and  about  two  miles  and 
a  half  from  the  river,  of  which  long  views  could  be  had  in  either 
direction.  On  the  Virginia  side,  in  the  "northern  neck"  between 
the  Potomac  and  the  Rappahannock,  was  a  Confederate  signal 
camp  with  Sergt.  Harry  Brogden  in  charge.12 

At  dusk,  when  the  surface  of  the  river  grew  vague  and  uncer- 
tain and  the  lofty  bluffs  threw  deceptive  shadows,  a  boat  rowed 
by  men  of  the  signal  corps  would  cross  to  the  Maryland  shore, 
where  Jones  had  deposited  the  mail  in  the  hollow  of  an  old  tree. 
If  for  any  reason  the  way  were  not  clear,  a  warning  signal  was 
displayed  from  his  house.  Galloping  through  the  night,  ferried 
over  the  Rappahannock  from  Port  Conway  to  Port  Royal,  carriers 
posted  on  to  Richmond,  where  next  morning,  only  twenty-four 
hours  late,  newspapers  from  New  York  and  other  Northern  cities 
were  in  the  hands  of  Jefferson  Davis'  cabinet.  Travelers  whose 
passes  from  Richmond  were  in  order  were  taken  forth  and  back  in 
the  signal-corps  boat.  Jones— and  sometimes  others— also  did  con- 
siderable business  in  ferrying  passengers,  crossings  being  made 

11  Major  Smith's  "Between  the  Lines"  contains  a  fund  of  material  not  to  be 
had  elsewhere,  with   transcripts  of  documents. 

"In  December  1864  the  camp  was  on  the  site  of  Washington's  birthplace,  about 
one  and  a  half  miles  from  Oak  Grove. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  109 

nearly  every  night  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  war.  None  of 
these  activities  was  permanently  broken  up  by  the  Federal  gun- 
boats. 

To  the  military  authorities  in  Washington,  Lower  Maryland 
was  in  greater  part  a  terra  incognita— to  Baltimoreans,  many  of 
whom  originally  came  from  there,  the  region  was  familiar.  For 
some  of  them  who  were  "in  the  know,"  its  short  cuts,  byways, 
marshes,  runlets,  and  Potomac  waterfront  were  as  an  open  book. 
It  was  a  land  gullied  by  "branches,"  "runs,"  and  creeks;  with 
boggy  tracts,  the  great  Zekiah  Swamp  among  them;  its  few  roads 
poor  and  hilly,  and  stretches  of  its  untilled  fields  overgrown 
with  small  pines.  Many  of  the  inhabitants  knew  little  of  the  out- 
side world  with  the  exception  of  Baltimore  and  possibly  the  "old 
counties"  along  the  Virginia  shore  of  the  river.  This  section  of 
Maryland  has  aptly  been  called  a  "Union  frontier,"  and  in  many 
cases  the  indifferent  "loyalty"  of  its  people  changed  to  heartfelt 
disloyalty  when  slavery  ceased  and  the  labor  problem  became 
difficult. 

E.  A.  Pollard,  the  Southern  historian,  boasted  that  there  was 
"a  real  secession  party"  in  Baltimore  as  late  as  1865.  Ladies  of 
the  town's  "upper  circles"  endeavored  to  present  to  Col.  Harry 
Gilmor,  Confederate  raider,  a  saber  for  which  they  paid  in  New 
York  $125  in  gold.  No  doubt  they  hoped  he  might  wear  it  when 
entering  the  city  in  triumph.  On  November  1st,  1864,  Major 
Smith  intercepted  the  messenger  who  was  taking  to  Gilmor  the 
saber  and  a  note  from  one  of  the  donors.  The  writer  of  the  note 
was  tried,  and  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  $5,000  and  serve  a  term 
of  five  years  in  prison;  but  after  a  few  days  she  was  released.  Gil- 
mor later  told  Major  Smith  that  if  he  had  been  lucky  enough  to 
get  the  saber,  he  "would  have  killed  many  a  Yank  with  it." 

Even  the  pulpit,  according  to  the  Major,  was  in  a  few  instances 
disloyal  in  sentiment.  It  would  not  have  been  strange  if  in  saloons 
on  "The  Causeway"  or  in  other  of  Baltimore's  "tough  spots"  the 
old  pre-war  spirit  of  the  Know-Nothings,  of  the  Blood  Tubs  and 
the  Plug-Uglies  yet  flickered;  or  if  zealots  behind  closed  doors  laid 
desperate  plots.  Asia  had  long  before  counseled  John  Booth  that 
if  he  went  on  the  stage  he  ought  to  keep  out  of  politics.  It  was 


no  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

good  advice.  He  should  have  followed  it— and  it  would  have  been 
well  if  he  likewise  had  kept  out  of  Baltimore. 

He  was  here,  there,  yonder;  and  strange  hints  of  him  rise  from 
unlikely  places.  Sometimes  he  was  at  Edwin's  house  in  New  York, 
where  Mary  Ann  Booth  and  Rosalie  made  their  home.  The 
wounded  Adam  Badeau  found  him  there  in  July  1863.  Both 
Edwin  and  John,  said  Badeau,  "dressed  my  wounds  and  tended 
me  with  the  greatest  care."  13  In  June  of  1864  Edwin  had  written 
to  his  friend  Miss  Emma  Cary: 

My  brother  Wilkes  is  here  for  the  summer,  and  we  intend  taking 
advantage  of  our  thus  being  brought  together,  with  nothing  to  do,  and 
will,  in  the  course  of  a  week  or  two,  give  a  performance  of  "Julius 
Caesar" — in  which  I  shall  undertake  Brutus  instead  of  Cassius — for  the 
benefit  of  the  statue  we  wish  to  erect  in  Central  Park. 

This  benefit  performance,  as  we  know,  was  not  given  until 
November  25th,  and  John  had  meanwhile  taken  quarters  in 
Washington.  In  the  middle  of  November  he  was  in  New  York 
for  rehearsals.  His  friend  Chester,  who  played  Trebonius,  wished 
to  know  why  he  was  not  acting,  and  other  friends  joked  with  him 
about  his  investments  in  oil.14  He  was  well  acquainted  in  New 
York,  promenaded  lower  Broadway,  and  patronized  the  "House 
of  Lords,"  a  saloon-restaurant  on  Houston  Street. 

Politically,  he  must  have  found  in  New  York  much  that  was 
akin  to  his  own  spirit.  Horace  Greeley  once  said  to  James  R. 
Gilmore  of  the  Tribune  staff  that  in  New  York  "the  ideas  and 
vital  aims  of  the  Rebellion"  were  "generally  more  prevalent  than 
even  in  South  Carolina."  New  York  was  a  center  of  forged  enlist- 
ment, bounty-jumping,  bounty-broking,  seditious  journalism.  It 
was  the  town  of  the  Draft  Riots,  and  John  Booth  appears  to  have 
been  there  when  they  occurred.  The  riots  began  on  July  11th, 
1863;  were  not  finally  quelled  till  the  16th,  when  the  Seventh 
regiment  arrived  from  the  front  and  dispersed  the  mob.  Houses 
were  sacked;  Negroes  chased  and  hanged  to  lampposts;   the  of- 

13  John  laughed  to  Asia  about  this:  "Imagine  me  helping  that  wounded  soldier 
with  my  rebel  sinews!" 

14  The  "oil  business"  and  its  maneuvers  were  popular  objects  of  ridicule.  Minstrel 
shows  had  skits  about  them. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  m 

fices  of  the  provost  marshal  wrecked.  The  Negro  orphan  asylum 
was  burned.  The  mob,  says  Mrs.  Lamb  (in  her  "History  of  the 
City  of  New  York")  "tore  down  and  trampled  under  foot  the 
national  flags,  and  robbed  stores  in  open  day;  all  business  was 
suspended,  street-cars  and  stages  did  not  dare  to  run."  .  .  .  Mayor 
Fernando  Wood  had  recommended  to  the  council  that  New  York 
secede  and  become  a  "free  city."  In  New  York  Booth  could  not 
help  sensing  a  disloyalty  that,  if  it  had  not  been  resisted,  would 
possibly,  as  Greeley  declared,  "have  swept  over  the  North  and 
broken  the  Union  into  fragments." 

Asia,  married  to  John  S.  Clarke,  manager  and  comedian,  was 
living  in  an  old  mansion  in  Philadelphia.  John  had  now  and 
then  rested  there  between  engagements— or,  as  the  Spirit  of  the 
Times  expressed  it,  had  enjoyed  his  otium  cum  dignitate.  Edwin 
objected  to  what  he  considered  John's  secessionist  froth,  but  John 
could  speak  freely  to  Asia.  One  day,  harping  on  his  constant 
theme,  he  said: 

"If  the  North  conquer  us,  it  will  be  by  numbers  only." 

"If  the  North  conquer  us,"  Asia  mildly  replied,  "we  are  of  the 
North." 

"Not  I!"  he  burst  out  furiously.  "Not  I— so  help  me  holy  God! 
My  soul,  life,  and  possessions  are  for  the  South!" 

From  Philadelphia  there  was  a  busy  traffic  with  the  South,  both 
through  Chesapeake  Bay  and  by  land.  Up  to  the  spring  of  1864 
contraband  passed  unendingly,  some  of  it  via  Baltimore,  some  by 
other  routes.  The  trade  became  more  precarious  after  that  but 
never  was  entirely  suppressed. 

It  appears  from  a  sketch  written  by  Asia  in  1874,  when  living 
in  England,  that  John  as  an  actor  had  a  pass  issued  under  Grant's 
authority,  that  he  had  used  this  otherwise  than  professionally,  and 
that  at  one  time  he  was  purchasing  the  best  grade  of  quinine  out 
of  his  own  means  and  helping  to  smuggle  it  across  the  Confederate 
lines.  Asia  says  that  he  went  as  far  afield  as  Kansas  and  Texas. 

During  the  winter  of  1864-1865  he  was  in  Montreal.  It  was 
reported  in  the  Telegraph  of  that  city  that  he  talked  with  J.  W. 
Buckland,  manager  of  the  Theatre  Royal,  about  an  engagement  at 
that  house,  and  later  mentioned  his  wish  to  get  to  Richmond  and 
appear  there  for  the  benefit  of  Confederate  hospitals.  He  took  the 


112  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

greater  part  of  his  wardrobe  to  Montreal  and  left  it  in  the  care 
of  a  friend— apparently  Martin,  the  liquor  dealer  of  Baltimore, 
who  had  given  him  that  letter  of  introduction  to  Dr.  William 
Queen.  His  avowed  intention  was  to  go  from  Canada  to  Nassau 
and  thence  reach  a  Southern  port  on  a  blockade  runner.15  These 
runners  were  constantly  sailing  from  the  Bahamas  and  had 
brought  to  the  islands  a  short-lived  prosperity. 

At  St.  Lawrence  Hall,  then  the  leading  hotel  in  Montreal  (or, 
for  that  matter,  in  Canada)  lived  Jacob  Thompson  (who  had  been 
Buchanan's  Secretary  of  the  Interior),  Clement  C.  Clay,  Beverley 
Tucker,  and  George  N.  Sanders— agents  all,  official  or  unofficial, 
of  the  Confederate  government;  John  Booth  had  stayed  there, 
and  there  during  the  war  a  Southern  coterie  was  generally  found. 
George  lies,  afterward  manager  of  the  Windsor  Hotel  (Montreal) 
and  a  writer  of  authority  in  scientific  matters,  was  then  office  boy 
to  James  Baillie,  a  wholesale  dry  goods  merchant  of  the  city  and 
an  outspoken  sympathizer  with  the  Confederacy.  Baillie  became  a 
personal  friend  of  the  Southern  agents  and  also  of  John  Booth, 
who  had  taken  lodgings  in  Cote  Street,  near  the  Theatre  Royal. 
Mr.  lies  stated  to  the  present  writer: 

Several  times  I  called  on  Mr.  Booth  with  a  book  or  other  packet  from 
Mr.  Baillie,  and  sometimes  I  brought  him  a  verbal  invitation  to  lunch- 
eon or  dinner.  He  was  courtesy  incarnate — with  the  manners  of  a 
Virginian  of  the  old  school.  I  remember  him  distinctly  in  the  yellow 
fox-skin  cap  which  he  wore  when  photographed  by  George  Martin,  in 
his  St.  Peter  Street  studio. 

Booth  was  described  by  Mr.  lies  as  "occasionally"  a  visitor  at  the 
hotel.16 

In  the  "Personal  Memoirs"  of  Gen.  Phil  Sheridan17  is  to  be 
found  a  curious  anecdote  of  the  early  days  of  1865  in  the  Shen- 
andoah Valley.  A  man  who  went  by  the  name  of  Lomas,  and  who 
said  he  was  a  Marylander,  had  been  employed  as  a  spy  by  the 
General— largely  because  he  was  recommended  by  Secretary 
Stanton,  for  whom  he  had  acted  in  that  capacity.  He  proved  to  be 

15  Testimony  of  S.  K.  Chester.  Daily  News  (New  York),  Apr.  27,  1865;  p.  5. 

16  Mr.  lies  pointed  out  that  the  references  to  Booth  and  to  himself  in  Grace 
King's  "Memoirs  of  a  Southern  Woman"  are  in  many  respects  erroneous. 

"Vol.  ii,  pp.  108-112. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  113 

unusually  intelligent;  but  when  his  reports  were  checked  against 
those  of  men  detailed  by  Maj.  H.  K.  Young,  Sheridan's  chief  of 
"scouts,"  there  were  divergences  that  led  Sheridan  to  believe  him 
a  "double  spy"— that  is,  one  also  in  the  service  of  the  Confederacy. 
"I  felt,  however,"  said  the  General,  "that  with  good  watching 
he  could  do  me  little  harm,  and  if  my  suspicions  were  incorrect  he 
might  be  very  useful,  so  I  held  on  to  him." 

At  the  beginning  of  February,  around  the  time  when  Major 
Young  captured  Harry  Gilmor,  Lomas  requested  the  General  to 
find  employment  for  an  acquaintance  who,  he  said,  had  been 
with  Mosby's  guerrillas  but  had  left  them  on  account  of  a  quarrel. 
At  midnight  Lomas  brought  to  Sheridan's  headquarters  a  person 
heavily  disguised,  who,  having  shed  "various  contrivances,"  turned 
out  to  be  "a  rather  slender,  dark-complexioned,  handsome  young 
man,  of  easy  address  and  captivating  manners."  He  gave  his 
name  as  Renfrew,18  satisfactorily  answered  the  General's  ques- 
tions, and  evinced  a  familiar  knowledge  of  Mosby  and  Mosby's 
command.  It  was  arranged  that  during  the  following  night  Lomas 
and  Renfrew  should  set  out  to  burn  railway  bridges. 

From  the  moment  they  left  they  were  shadowed  by  men  of 
Major  Young's  force;  and  when  it  became  evident  that  they  were 
furnishing  intelligence  to  the  enemy,  they  were  arrested  and 
ordered  to  Fort  Warren  in  Boston  harbor.  While  passing  through 
Baltimore,  they  mysteriously  escaped  from  their  guards  and  noth- 
ing further  was  definitely  heard  of  them.  A  few  weeks  later  it 
occurred  to  Sheridan  "that  the  good-looking  Renfrew  may  have 
been  Wilkes  Booth,  for  he  certainly  bore  a  strong  resemblance 
to  Booth's  pictures." 

The  projectors  of  the  Great  American  Myth  seem  to  have  been 
ignorant  of  this  story.  They  could  have  done  something  with  it- 
could  have  involved  Stanton  in  knavish  tricks  or  deduced  that 
John  Booth  really  was,  as  has  been  claimed,  an  officer  in  the  Con- 
federate army.  Here  must  be  registered  the  plain  conviction  that 
the  General's  suspicions  were  unfounded;  for  at  the  very  time 
when  Major  Young's  men  reported  Lomas  and  Renfrew  at  Stras- 
burg,  Virginia,  John  Booth  was  at  Edwin's  in  New  York,  where 

"The  Prince  of  Wales  had  made  a  tour  of  the  United  States  in  i860  as  Baron 
Renfrew. 


ii4  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

(so  Junius  confided  to  Asia)  he  was  laboring  all  one  night  over  a 
poetic  valentine  for  "Miss  Hale."  On  March  2nd,  when  Renfrew 
and  Lomas  were  arrested,  John  Booth  was  in  Washington  at  the 
National  Hotel.  Furthermore,  resemblance  to  John  Booth  has 
been  claimed  for  a  staggering  number  of  persons. 

During  that  fatal  winter,  when  John  was  not  acting  and  when 
so  much  of  his  time  was  divided  between  his  new  home  of  Wash- 
ington and  his  old  home  of  Baltimore,  there  was  on  his  part  what 
Asia  called  "a  turn  towards  the  evil."  It  was  a  drift— we  cannot 
mark  any  particular  occasion;  we  can  only  take  note  of  a  change. 
He  was  becoming  quick-tempered;  he  seemed  weary  and  feverishly 
abstracted.  When  he  was  beneath  the  Clarkes'  roof  in  Philadel- 
phia, Asia  saw  and  heard  much  that  was  surprising  and  distress- 
ing. Late  at  night  men  came  to  the  door,  asked  for  John,  stood 
whispering  in  the  hallway.  Some  she  did  not  know— others  she 
recognized  by  their  voices  though  they  would  not  answer  to  their 
names.  John  often  slept  in  his  clothes  and  high  riding-boots  on 
a  couch  downstairs. 

Once  Asia  happened  to  inquire  after  Michael  O'Laughlin,  with 
whom  she  had  been  acquainted  in  Baltimore  and  who  had  en- 
listed in  the  Confederate  ranks.  John  started. 

"Why,  what  possessed  you  to  ask  about  him?"  he  asked  sharply. 
Then  more  quietly,  "He's  home  on  leave." 

"Not  in  the  hospital?"  Asia  persevered. 

"No.  Forget  his  name— don't  talk  of  him!" 

In  late  December  or  early  January,  John  was  in  New  York  and 
called  at  the  house  of  his  friend  Chester  in  Grove  Street.  He  and 
Chester  had  known  each  other  for  a  number  of  years— Chester 
had  been  a  member  of  the  Baltimore  Museum's  stock  company 
in  1855-1856.  Since  their  previous  meeting  (in  November),  Booth 
had  written  several  letters  telling  of  the  profits  to  be  made  through 
deals  in  farm  lands  in  Lower  Maryland  and  urging  Chester  to 
invest.  Now,  during  a  walk  from  the  Revere  House  to  Greenwich 
Village,  he  disclosed  that  he  was  in  "a  large  conspiracy  to  capture 
the  heads  of  the  Government  (including  the  President),  and  take 
them  to  Richmond"— a  conspiracy  in  which  from  fifty  to  a  hun- 
dred persons  were  associated. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  115 

The  President  was  to  be  taken  while  in  his  box  at  Ford's 
Theatre  and  spirited  away  through  a  back  door,  which  Chester 
would  hold  open,  to  the  public  alley.  The  matter  was  simple. 
Booth  did  not  make  clear  just  how  he  expected  to  get  the  Presi- 
dent from  the  box  to  the  stage  and  across  the  Potomac;  but  he 
said  everything  was  ready  and  that  persons  on  the  Virginia  side 
of  the  river  were  joined  in  the  affair.  Chester  asked  whether  this 
were  the  deal  John  had  been  writing  about,  and  John  said  it  was. 
Chester,  in  spite  of  repeated  threats,  refused  to  go  into  it. 

But  John  kept  on  writing— once  sending  $50,  saying  Chester 
must  be  on  hand  in  Washington  by  Saturday  night;  and  in  March 
he  was  taking  another  walk  with  Chester  in  New  York,  denounc- 
ing "one  John  Matthews"  as  a  coward  not  fit  to  live  because  he 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  enterprise,  and  assuring  Ches- 
ter there  was  plenty  of  money  in  it.  However,  when  Chester  in- 
sisted on  returning  the  $50,  Booth  made  no  objection,  rather  in- 
consistently deploring  a  lack  of  funds  and  stating  it  would  be 
necessary  to  "go  to  Richmond  to  obtain  means."  19 

This  plan  that  Booth  importuned  Chester  to  enter  into— this 
plot  to  abduct  the  President  and  perhaps  others— is  known  to 
have  involved  John  Booth,  Sam  Arnold,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  and 
John  H.  Surratt.  One  Lewis  T.  Powell  was  also  in  the  scheme. 

Powell,  going  by  such  aliases  as  Wood  and  Paine,  was  a  young 
giant  who  had  enlisted  in  the  Second  Florida,  had  been  wounded 
at  Gettysburg  and  taken  prisoner,  and  afterward  was  detailed  as  a 
nurse  at  Pennsylvania  College  Hospital.  From  there  he  was  sent 
to  West  Building  Hospital  in  Baltimore;  but  he  decamped,  joined 
up  with  Mosby's  irregulars  in  Fauquier  County,  Virginia,  and  was 
in  that  service  until  January  1865.  He  then  took  the  oath  of  al- 
legiance and  on  January  13th  a  parole  was  issued  to  him.  While 
in  hospital  at  Gettysburg  he  had  met  Miss  Maggie  Branson  of 
Baltimore,  who  was  briefly  acting  as  a  nurse.  He  now  went  to 
Baltimore  and  lodged  with  the  Bransons  in  the  boarding-house 
that  Mrs.  M.  A.  Branson  kept  at  16  North  Eutaw  Street. 

At  this  boarding-house  he  "whipped"— to  use  Miss  Branson's 

19  See  Poore's  report;  vol.  i,  pp.  43-51.  Chester  said  he  thought  it  was  in  February 
that  Booth  mentioned  Richmond,  but  it  was  shown  to  have  been  later  than  that 
(argument  of  W.  S.  Cox  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial). 


n6  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

euphemism— a  Negro  maid  who  had  been  impudent  to  him.  Ac- 
cording to  testimony,  he  "threw  her  on  the  ground  and  stamped 
on  her  body,  struck  her  on  the  forehead,  and  said  he  would  kill 
her."  The  maid  went  to  the  military  authorities  to  have  him  ar- 
rested. It  was  charged  that  he  had  previously  been  in  Baltimore; 
but  when  expected  witnesses  failed  to  appear,  Major  Smith,  who 
felt  Powell  to  be  a  spy  though  this  could  not  be  proved,  advised 
that  he  be  released  but  decided  that  he  ought  to  be  removed  from 
the  Bransons  and  from  Baltimore.  So  when  Powell,  under  the 
name  of  Lewis  Paine,  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  before  Smith 
on  March  14th  and  was  paroled,  Smith  inserted  in  the  parole: 
"&  to  go  north  of  Philadelphia  &  remain  during  the  war." 

Miss  Branson,  who  from  her  own  statement  appears  to  have 
endorsed  the  "whipping,"  subsequently  acknowledged:  "I  told 
Lieut.  Smith  that  he  [Paine]  had  not  been  North  before  since  the 
war  commenced.  I  at  the  same  time  knew  he  had;  I  did  this  to 
shield  him  from  harm."  She  had  "walked  out"  with  the  gladiato- 
rial Powell-Paine,  and  called  with  him  at  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Heim 
on  Paca  Street.  Mr.  Heim,  it  seems,  had  "business"  in  Richmond 
—as  did  other  Baltimoreans.  Out  of  nineteen  guests  at  the  Bran- 
son establishment,  Major  Smith  could  discover  only  four  that  un- 
questionably were  loyal.20  Paine  did  immediately  go  north,  to  the 
Revere  House  in  New  York— he  went  with  money  given  him  by 
John  Booth. 

His  own  story  was  that  just  before  the  outbreak  of  war,  while 
stationed  with  the  troops  at  Richmond,  he  got  a  pass  and  went 
to  the  theater.  This  was  the  first  time  he  had  seen  a  play;  John 
Booth  was  appearing  and  Paine  was  delighted.  After  the  perform- 
ance he  sought  out  the  actor,  and  these  two,  so  vastly  unlike  in 
most  ways,  were  soon  on  friendly  terms.  (John  quickly  made 
friends  with  all  sorts  when  he  chose.)  In  Baltimore  at  twilight  of 
a  March  day  in  1865  Paine  was  roaming  by  Barnum's  Hotel  when 
from  the  steps  a  voice  hailed  him  and,  looking  up,  he  saw  Booth. 
It  is  certain  that  John  did  encounter  Paine  in  Baltimore  and 
there  drafted  him  for  the  abduction  plot.  As  for  the  prelude  in 
Richmond,  search  through  the  file  of  the  Daily  Dispatch  from 

20  Smith,  "Between  the  Lines";  pp.  255-258,  302-310. 


From  a  photograph  by  Fredericks   (New   York) 

JOHN  WILKES  BOOTH 

"So  bright,  so  gay,  so  kind"  (Clara  Morris) 

"No  young  man  had  brighter  prospects  in  life"  (John  T.  Ford) 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  117 

January  1st  to  May  8  th,  1861,  reveals  no  mention  of  John  in 
its  theatrical  announcements. 

Arnold  specified  the  latter  part  of  August  1864,  or  the  early 
part  of  September,  as  the  time  when,  to  his  knowledge,  the  idea 
of  abduction  first  was  broached.  It  was  at  a  conference  at  Bar- 
num's  Hotel,  and  Arnold  said  that  he  then  met  O'Laughlin,  whom 
he  had  not  previously  known.  Paine  was  still  in  northern  Virginia 
with  Mosby's  guerrillas.  The  basic  idea  was  to  seize  the  President, 
convey  him  to  Richmond,  and  thus  force  a  general  exchange  of 
prisoners.  Exchange  of  Confederate  prisoners  had  been  discon- 
tinued by  the  North  and  the  man-power  of  the  South  had  thus 
been  considerably  reduced.21 

It  seems  that  Confederate  sympathizers  in  Lower  Maryland 
were  well  aware  of  the  plot  and  that  details  regarding  it  were 
spread  by  the  "grapevine  route."  Many  of  these  people  would  have 
been  only  too  ready  to  further  the  venture,  even  though  not  tak- 
ing active  part  in  it.  Thomas  A.  Jones,  the  Confederate  mail  agent, 
though  denying  any  connection  with  it,  admitted  that  about 
December  1864  the  understanding  in  Charles  County  was  that 
Lincoln  was  to  be  captured  while  driving  without  escort  near  the 
Navy  Yard.  One  of  the  conspirators  would  then  mount  the  box, 
and  as  the  carriage  passed  over  the  Navy  Yard  bridge  Lincoln's 
captors  would  wave  their  hands  toward  him  and  shout  to  the 
guards,  "The  President!"  Relays  of  horses  would  be  in  waiting  and 
Lincoln  would  be  transported  to  the  west  side  of  Port  Tobacco 
Creek,  about  four  miles  below  the  county  town  of  Port  Tobacco 
and  some  forty  miles  from  Washington.  Word  was,  Jones  said,  that 
the  "big  actor"  Booth  was  "in  it."  22 

The  plan  unfolded  by  Booth  to  Chester  was  that  Lincoln,  hav- 
ing been  overpowered  in  his  box  at  Ford's,  would  be  bound,  low- 
ered to  the  stage,  and  carried  to  a  vehicle  in  the  alley.  Arnold 
said  his  job  was  to  catch  the  President  when  lowered  by  Paine  and 
Booth.  Another  idea,  it  was  said,  was  to  take  Lincoln  prisoner  as 
he  walked  the  dimly  lit  footway  between  War  Department  and 
Executive  Mansion;  conduct  him  through  the  south  grounds  to 


See  Arnold's  narrative,  Baltimore  American,  Dec.  7-20,  1902. 


21 

23  Century  Magazine,  Apr.  1884;  p.  826. 


n8  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

the  old  Van  Ness  house,  near  the  Potomac  and  "given  over  to 
the  bat,  the  owl,  and  the  spider";  and  there  keep  him  hidden  in  the 
cellar  until  he  could  be  got  across  the  river  and  delivered  to  the 
Confederacy  as  a  hostage. 

From  February  13th,  1865,  to  March  18th,  J.  W.  Wallack  and 
E.  L.  Davenport  were  lessees  of  the  old  Washington  Theatre, 
and  during  the  last  week  of  their  tenancy  it  was  arranged  that 
they  give  an  afternoon  performance  of  Tom  Taylor's  "Still  Waters 
Run  Deep"  at  the  Soldiers'  Home.  Booth,  familiar  with  local 
theatrical  gossip,  had  undoubtedly  learned  of  this  well  in  advance, 
and  also  that  Lincoln  intended  to  be  present.  He  assembled  his 
group  for  a  special  meeting. 

O'Laughlin  was  there— a  slight,  pleasant-featured  man,  wearing 
heavy  black  mustache  and  imperial;  so  was  Arnold,  a  gentle- 
manly-looking fellow  with  curling  brown  hair,  and  the  beetle- 
browed,  hawk-nosed  John  Surratt,  and  George  A.  Atzerodt,  a 
thickset,  hulking  wagonmaker  with  a  German  accent.  The  six- 
foot,  glowering  Paine  was  there,  nicknamed  Mosby  by  some  of 
them;  and  a  "small  man"— little  David  E.  Herold,  to  whom  those 
who  knew  him  applied  the  formulaic  adjectives  "light  and 
trifling"— a  pharmacist's  clerk  once  employed  at  Thompson's 
drugstore,  where  the  Lincolns  bought  medicines. 

Atzerodt  had  been  living  at  Port  Tobacco  (those  who  couldn't 
pronounce  his  Teutonic  name  called  him  that)  and  had  agreed 
to  furnish  a  boat  to  make  the  crossing  of  the  Potomac.  Davy  Her- 
old had  often  been  gunning  in  Lower  Maryland,  was  supposed  to 
know  the  terrain  and  to  be  somewhat  acquainted  among  the 
people,  and  would  be  of  use  as  handy  man.  Paine  brought  his 
muscle  and  his  sullen  hardihood.  John  Surratt  was  a  Confederate 
"runner,"  taking  dispatches  to  the  signal-corps'  boats  on  the 
Potomac,  and  he  had  carried  on  that  work  while  drawing  Federal 
pay  for  conducting  the  Surrattsville  post  office.  He  thought  it  a 
"fascinating"  life  and  the  Federal  detectives  great  boobies,  for 
they  "seemed  to  have  no  idea  whatever  how  to  search  me."  Now 
he  could  pilot  Lincoln's  carriage  across  the  Eastern  Branch,  down 
through  Prince  George's  and  Charles  Counties,  over  roads  along 
which  he  so  often  had  driven  a  buggy  with  papers  hidden  un- 
derneath its  floor  boards.  He  had  already  left  with  John  M.  Lloyd, 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  119 

at  the  Surrattsville  house,  two  carbines,  ammunition,  a  monkey 
wrench,  and  twenty  feet  of  rope. 

During  the  meeting,  Arnold  said,  a  dispute  occurred  between 
him  and  Booth.  Arnold  had  given  notice  that  unless  something 
were  done  that  week  he  would  retire  from  the  thing.  Booth  an- 
grily replied  that  Arnold  ought  to  be  shot  for  breaking  his  oath  in 
that  fashion.  Since  about  February  10th  Arnold  and  O'Laughlin 
had  been  rooming  at  Mrs.  Van  Tine's  boarding-house  on  D  Street 
and  getting  their  meals  at  the  Franklin  House  (corner  of  D  and 
Eighth)— all,  presumably,  at  Booth's  expense.  A  horse  and  vehicle 
had  been  on  call  at  a  livery  stable  whenever  they  wished  to  drive 
out.  Most  of  their  time,  as  Arnold  stated,  had  been  spent  at 
Rullman's,  456  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  "in  drinking  and  amuse- 
ments, with  the  Baltimoreans  besides  ourselves  congregating 
there."  Booth  had,  in  fact,  subsidized  the  whole  crew,  and  was 
now  in  a  mood  to  express  his  authority.  Arnold  told  him,  "If  you 
feel  inclined  to  shoot  me,  I  shall  defend  myself." 

This  meeting  was  held,  so  Arnold  wrote,  on  March  15th  at 
Gautier's  saloon-restaurant  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  between 
Twelfth  and  Thirteenth,  where  there  were  private  rooms.  On  the 
afternoon  of  the  17th  Booth  and  his  ill-assorted  company  of  six 
rode  out  Seventh  Street  and  beyond  the  town— but  to  no  purpose. 
Lincoln  had  been  detained  by  his  engagements  and  consequently 
had  not  attended  the  theatrical  performance  at  the  Soldiers' 
Home.  Arnold  and  O'Laughlin  forthwith  returned  to  Baltimore. 
On  March  27th  Booth  telegraphed  to  O'Laughlin  to  come  with  or 
without  Sam,  but  no  reply  is  in  evidence.  On  the  same  day  Arnold 

wrote  Booth  that  "the  G 1  suspicions  something  is  going  on 

there,"  suggesting  that  the  matter  be  dropped  for  the  present, 
criticizing  Booth  for  mismanagement,  and  proposing  that  some- 
body "go  and  see  how  it  will  be  taken  at  R d  [Richmond]." 

He  obtained  a  clerkship  with  John  W.  ("Wickey")  Wharton,  sut- 
ler at  Old  Point,  and  entered  upon  his  work  on  April  2nd.  The 
abduction  plot,  after  hanging  fire  for  six  months,  had  at  last 
simply  fizzled.23 

23  Arnold's  confession,  written  for  Provost  Marshal  McPhail  (Baltimore),  New 
York  Times,  Jan.  19,  1869;  p.  8.  Arnold's  narrative,  Baltimore  American  (Dec. 
1902).  Weichmann's  testimony  is  of  dubious  value. 


120  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

In  a  lecture  delivered  some  years  afterward,  Surratt  explained: 

It  was  our  intention  to  seize  the  carriage,  which  was  drawn  by  a 
splendid  pair  of  horses,  and  have  one  of  our  men  mount  the  box  and 
drive  for  Southern  Maryland  via  Benning's  Bridge.24  We  felt  confident 
that  all  the  cavalry  in  the  city  would  never  overtake  us.  We  were  all 
mounted  on  swift  horses  besides  having  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
country,  it  being  determined  to  abandon  the  carriage  after  passing  the 
city  limits.  Upon  the  suddenness  of  our  blow  and  the  celerity  of  our 
movements  we  depended  for  success.  By  the  time  the  alarm  could  have 
been  given  and  horses  saddled,  we  would  have  been  on  our  way  through 
Southern  Maryland  toward  the  Potomac  River. 

He  also  stated  that  the  conspirators  did  not  learn  until  about 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  before  the  time  set  that  Lincoln  meant 
to  attend  the  performance  of  "Still  Waters  Run  Deep."  This  is 
hardly  possible  and  is  contradicted  by  other  evidence.  Still  later, 
in  a  long  interview  in  the  Washington  Post  of  April  3rd,  1898, 
Surratt  declared  that  when  the  "wild  scheme"  of  abduction  was 
presented  to  him  by  Booth,  he  "simply  laughed,"  knowing  it  to  be 
"utterly  impracticable."  He  then  "dismissed  the  matter"  and  "sup- 
posed Booth  had  done  the  same."  This  is  quite  unbelievable  and  is 
only  a  minor  specimen  of  the  contradictions  that  bestrew  the  path 
of  these  events. 

Two  others  were  cognizant  of  the  abduction  plot— John  Mat- 
thews and  Louis  J.  Weichmann.  Matthews  stated  in  1881  that  he 
was  born  in  Baltimore,  had  grown  up  there,  and  knew  Booth 
since  they  were  lads  together.  In  Washington  during  the  winter 
of  1864-1865,  Matthews  said,  Booth  often  dropped  in  to  see  him, 
and  sometimes  talked  of  the  feasibility  of  abducting  the  President, 
though  never  confiding  any  of  the  plans.  He  heard  the  perform- 
ance of  "Still  Waters"  discussed  by  Wallack,  Davenport,  and 
Matthews  (who  was  in  the  cast).  Some  days  before  the  play  was 
given,  Matthews  took  with  him  to  Baltimore,  at  Booth's  request, 
a  trunk  to  be  delivered  to  "a  gentleman."  This  trunk  was  filled, 
according  to  Matthews,  with  provisions,  toilet  articles,  and  various 
comforts  for  Lincoln  on  the  journey  to  the  Confederate  lines.25 

Louis  J.  Weichmann  stated  under  oath  that  he  had  once  asked 

34  This  was  farther  up  the  Eastern  Branch,  at  the  end  of  Pennsylvania  and  Ken- 
tucky Avenues. 
85  Col.  F.  A.  Burr  in  the  Philadelphia  Press,  Dec.  4,  1881;  p.  2. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  121 

Captain  Gleason,  a  fellow  clerk  in  the  office  of  the  commissary- 
general  of  prisoners,  "Captain,  do  you  think  any  party  could  at- 
tempt the  capture  of  President  Lincoln?"  Gleason,  he  said,  had 
"laughed  and  hooted  at  the  idea."  Weichmann  later  was  in  a 
sense  confirmed  by  Gleason;  but  Gleason  went  further,  declaring 
that  as  early  as  February  20th  Weichmann  had  told  him  of  a  plan 
to  abduct  Lincoln  and  the  Cabinet.  The  time  set  was  March  4th, 
the  day  of  Lincoln's  second  inaugural,  "as  then  there  would  be  so 
many  strangers  in  the  city  that  people's  attention  would  be  di- 
verted." This  sounded  to  Gleason  like  nonsense.26  So  it  did  to 
Lieut.  Josiah  W.  Sharp,  Gleason's  roommate  and  an  assistant 
provost  marshal  on  the  staff  of  Gen.  C.  C.  Augur,  commander  of 
the  military  department  of  Washington.  Weichmann  later  said 
that  he  had  told  an  enrolling  officer  named  McDavitt  and  Mc- 
Davitt  had  notified  the  authorities,  who  were  rather  incredulous. 
If  true  (and  there  is  no  reason  for  doubt),  Gleason's  version  dis- 
credits Weichmann's  professions,  when  under  oath,  that  what 
he  said  to  Gleason  regarding  abduction  was  "merely  a  casual 
remark"  and  that  he  had  no  idea  such  a  thing  was  really  in  the 
wind.  Weichmann  was  a  friend  of  J.  H.  Surratt,  with  whom  he  had 
attended  a  preparatory  school  in  Howard  County,  near  Balti- 
more.27 

At  the  Capitol,  before  the  inaugural  ceremonies  of  March  4th, 
1865,  an  incident  occurred  that  has  been  much  garbled  and  some- 
times denied.  The  President  and  the  justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court  had  just  walked  through  the  rotunda  and  out  to  the  east 
portico,  when  a  determined  and  excited  man  broke  past  the  line 
of  Capitol  police  stationed  in  the  rotunda  to  hold  back  the  crowd. 
He  tried  to  gain  the  east  portal  but  Officer  J.  W.  Westfall  grabbed 
him.  The  door  was  closed,  and  after  a  scuffle  the  man  was  forced 
back  by  the  police. 

His  conduct  was  afterward  freely  remarked  upon  by  those  who 
had  chanced  to  witness  it,  and  the  historian  B.  J.  Lossing  wrote 
that  he  heard  talk  of  it  at  Willard's  that  evening.  Westfall  and 

36  Magazine  of  History,  Feb.  1911;  pp.  59-65. 

27  A  letter  written  by  Surratt  to  a  cousin  on  Feb.  6,  1865,  was  on  stationery  of  the 
Office  of  the  Commissary-General  of  Prisoners — where  Weichmann  was  employed 
and  Surratt  was  not  (Baker,  "History  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service,"  pp.  562- 
563). 


122  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

other  police  officers,  including  Maj.  B.  B.  French,  the  commis- 
sioner, subsequently  claimed  to  recognize  a  photograph  of  Booth 
as  that  of  the  man  in  the  rotunda.  In  April,  at  the  "House  of 
Lords"  in  New  York,  Booth  and  S.  K.  Chester  were  quietly 
talking  when  suddenly  John  banged  the  table  and  volleyed  at 
Chester,  "What  an  excellent  chance  I  had  to  kill  the  President, 
if  I  had  wished,  on  inauguration  day!  I  was  as  near  to  him  as  I  am 
to  you."  Though  it  may  have  been  he  who  struggled  with  West- 
fall,  he  had  not  then  determined  on  murder.  Abduction  was  at 
that  time  his  purpose.  He  may  have  been  stirred  to  this  outbreak 
by  his  extravagant,  irrational  dislike  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  who 
for  a  second  time  had  defeated  the  endeavors  of  his  enemies  to 
keep  him  from  office.28 

The  incident  appears  not  to  have  reached  the  newspapers  of  the 
succeeding  days.  They  spoke  only  of  a  Thomas  Clemens  who  was 
arrested  for  "very  disorderly  conduct"  in  front  of  Willard's  on 
Sunday  (the  day  after).  One  of  his  random  vaporings  was,  ac- 
cording to  the  Evening  Star,29  that  he  came  from  Alexandria  to 
kill  President  Lincoln.  "He  seemed,"  the  paper  observed,  "to  be 
none  the  better  for  whiskey."  The  Intelligencer  said  there  had 
been  "not  a  single  commitment  to  the  District  jail  on  the  4th  of 
March." 

In  the  stress  of  later  developments  an  attempt  was  made  to 
trace  the  origin  of  the  abduction  plot  to  the  Southern  agents  in 
Canada.  This  attempt  was  unfortunately  bolstered  by  the  testi- 
mony of  one  Richard  Montgomery,  a  perjurer,  and  of  his  associate, 
one  Charles  A.  Dunham,  alias  Sandford  Conover,  alias  James  Wat- 
son Wallace,  a  rank  perjurer  and  an  instructor  in  perjury,  con- 
victed of  perjury  by  the  Criminal  Court  of  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia. Dunham's  testimony  as  a  whole  was  found  to  be  an  imposture, 
and  any  part  of  it  is  suspect.  On  the  face  of  it,  it  is  highly  im- 
probable that  a  specialized  transaction  like  this  would  be  man- 
aged from  such  a  distance.  That  Confederate  agents  in  Canada 

28  New  York  Tribune,  Apr.  28,  1876;  p.  1  and  Feb.  15,  1884;  p.  3.  Lossing's  account 
was  in  The  Independent,  Feb.  14,  1884;  pp.  3-4.  An  article  by  Lamon  in  the  Wash- 
ington Critic,  Sept.  17,  1887,  had  affidavits.  There  are  no  records  of  the  Capitol 
Police  prior  to  1898. 

29  Mar.  8. 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  123 

were  guilty  of  procuring  and  abetting  the  raid  on  St.  Albans 
(Vermont),  the  essay  at  firing  New  York,  and  John  Y.  Beall's  ex- 
pedition to  free  the  prisoners  on  Johnson's  Island,  there  can  be 
no  reasonable  doubt.  That  they  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
abduction  plot  is  one  of  those  gratuitous  suppositions  that  cluster 
around  the  Great  American  Myth.  It  is  an  indictment  that,  for 
lack  of  material  evidence,  cannot  be  sustained. 

Nor  can  the  suggestion  of  David  H.  Bates30  and  others  that  John 
Booth,  because  he  was  in  the  city,  may  have  been  connected  with 
Kennedy  and  others  in  the  plot  to  burn  New  York.  Bates,  evi- 
dently conscious  of  this,  turned  from  Booth  to  Paine  and  referred 
to  a  "confession"  allegedly  made  by  Paine  to  Maj.  T.  T.  Eckert, 
chief  of  the  War  Department's  telegraph  staff.  If  Bates'  account  is 
faithful,  Paine  told  Eckert  much  that  was  untrustworthy.  In  No- 
vember 1864  he  was  not  in  New  York  but  in  northern  Virginia 
with  Mosby  the  raider.  Hence  he  could  not  have  refused  to  be  a 
party  to  this  "crime  involving  injury  and  probably  death."  31 

The  authorities  at  Richmond  cannot  be  shown  to  have  been 
concerned  in  the  abduction  plot.  It  was  after  that  plot  had  fallen 
through  that  Arnold,  in  his  letter  of  March  27th,  1865,  proposed 

that  somebody  "go  and  see  how  it  will  be  taken  at  R d."  It 

was  then  that  Booth  (who  was  out  of  Washington  from  March 
21st  to  the  25th)  told  Chester  this  would  have  to  be  done  as 
Booth  himself  was  "so  very  short  of  funds."  Arnold  in  his  confes- 
sion said  explicitly:  "The  Richmond  authorities,  as  far  as  I  know, 
knew  nothing  of  the  conspiracy." 

It  is  in  Baltimore  that  we  first  hear  of  the  abduction  plot- 
in  late  August  or  early  September  of  1864  at  Barnum's  City  Hotel. 
Not  only  John  Booth  but  Michael  O'Laughlin  and  Samuel  Arnold 
were  Baltimoreans.  Paine  had  become  acquainted  there— had 
found  there,  at  the  Bransons  and  among  their  friends,  a  congenial 
atmosphere.  Surratt,  for  his  part,  was  familiar  with  Baltimore  and 
was  constantly  in  and  out  of  it,  for  it  was  from  Baltimore  that 
many  of  the  dispatches  proceeded  that  he  sped  upon  their  way  to 
the  Confederacy.  He  did  not  move  from  Surrattsville  to  Wash- 

5,0  "Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office";  pp.  306-307. 
**Ib.,  pp.  380-381. 


124  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

ington  until  the  autumn  of  1864,  and  had  spent  his  life  up  to 
that  time  in  a  part  of  Maryland  that  was  closely  under  Baltimore's 
influence. 

Both  Arnold  and  O'Laughlin,  like  many  another  Baltimorean, 
had  gone  to  the  Confederacy  to  serve  in  its  armies.  Paine,  it  is 
clear,  had  no  respect  whatever  for  a  parole.  O'Laughlin  and  Ar- 
nold may  have  had,  but  they  were  among  those  whose  records  for 
disloyalty  were  on  file  at  Baltimore  in  the  cabinets  of  the  provost 
marshal.  The  animus  of  Booth,  so  obvious  when  he  seems  to 
have  been  reciting  "Julius  Caesar"  in  stealthy  conclaves  or  when 
he  is  said  to  have  been  burning  railway  bridges,  was  the  animus 
of  Baltimore's  disloyalists,  who  had  denounced  Lincoln  in  1861 
and,  more  warily,  denounced  him  still.  Atzerodt  was  a  native  of 
Lower  Maryland,  and  Herold  was  the  only  Washingtonian  of 
this  immediate  company. 

To  what  extent  certain  persons  in  Lower  Maryland,  especially 
Dr.  Samuel  Mudd,  had  knowledge  of  the  plot,  or  whether  indeed 
they  knew  of  it  at  all,  has  often  been  the  subject  of  prejudiced 
and  futile  controversy.  That  knowledge  of  it  was  widespread 
among  the  "right  sort"  is  hardly  to  be  questioned.  Booth's  in- 
terest in  land  was  of  course  a  mere  subterfuge;  an  excuse  for  visits 
in  that  section.  Both  Mudd  and  Queen  were,  however,  too  far 
from  the  direct  route  between  Washington  and  Port  Tobacco  to 
have  been  of  any  assistance  in  the  proceedings. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  the  plot  "might  almost  be  called 
harmless,  from  its  perfect  absurdity  and  impracticability."  Cer- 
tainly there  were  difficulties.  Even  if  the  President  could  have 
been  seized  when  his  carriage  was  unescorted  by  the  Union  Light 
Guard,  it  would  have  been  no  easy  matter  to  spirit  him  out  of 
Washington.  The  roads  in  Lower  Maryland  were  heavy  at  that 
time  of  year.  Pursuit  would  soon  have  been  organized.  As  for  cap- 
turing Lincoln  at  Ford's  and  getting  him  away— this  seems  even 
more  dubious.  Regarding  the  notion  of  lifting  him  over  the  brick 
wall,  Sergt.  Smith  Stimmel  wrote: 

There  were  those  who  thought  that  this  scheme  was  practical  and 
could  have  been  carried  out,  but  I  doubt  it  very  much.  In  the  first 
place  the  captors  would  have  had  the  President's  great  physical  powers 
to  contend  with,  and  secondly,  any  demonstration  of  that  kind  would 


"A  TURN  TOWARDS  EVIL"  125 

have  been  in  close  proximity  to  the  guards  at  the  White  House  and 
would  have  brought  them  quickly  to  his  rescue.  They  [i.e.,  the  conspira- 
tors] might  have  killed  him,  but  I  do  not  believe  they  could  have  seized 
and  carried  him  away  alive.32 

John  Booth  was  ready  on  Saturday  evening,  March  18th,  for 
his  appearance  in  McCul lough's  benefit  at  Ford's.  The  fiendish 
Pescara,  who  so  hated  the  Moors  that  he  resolved  to  destroy  them, 
had  always  been  one  of  his  most  commended  roles.  Matthews  was 
in  the  cast,  and  in  the  audience  were  Surratt  and  Weichmann 
(their  complimentary  tickets  furnished  by  Booth),  Herold  and 
Atzerodt,  to  view  their  leader  as  he  stabbed  and  to  hear  him  cry: 

What  if  I  rush, 
And  with  a  blow  strike  life  from  out  his  heart? 

There  were  drinks  afterward  in  Taltavull's  restaurant,  adjoining 
the  theater  on  the  lower  side,  and  oysters  at  Kloman's  oyster-bay; 
and  Weichmann  was  present,  accepting  Booth's  hospitality. 

Heretofore  regarded  as  temperate  for  those  hard-drinking  times, 
Booth  now  was  consuming  astonishing  quantities  of  liquor, 
though  possibly  only  one  that  knew  him  well  could  have  dis- 
cerned it.  Brandy  was  said  to  be  his  favorite  tipple;  and  as  the 
duty  on  imported  liquors  was  high  during  the  war,  the  local 
price  of  a  small  glass  of  French  brandy  was  usually  fifty  cents. 
What  with  one  thing  and  another,  John  had  been  spending 
lavishly  all  winter.  By  John  T.  Ford's  account,  he  "squandered 
fully  if  not  over  $10,000  of  his  previous  earnings."  He  had  dra- 
gooned his  FalstafTian  army  but,  as  he  hinted  to  Chester,  its  main- 
tenance had  been  expensive— and  now  it  was  disbanded  and  he 
could  not  rally  it.  All  those  months  of  work  for  nothing! 

From  the  saloons  and  livery  stables  where  he  met  with  his  ac- 
complices, or  from  Mrs.  Surratt's  homely  boarding-establishment, 
he  would  turn  to  the  greenroom  of  Ford's,  where  he  mingled  and 
chatted  with  the  lovely  and  the  talented  of  his  profession;  or  to 
the  public  rooms  of  Willard's,  where  officers  sauntered  about 
after  dining  and  Congressmen  talked;  or  to  the  parlors  and  ball- 
room of  the  National,  where  always  he  was  a  preferred  cavalier. 
Only  recently  he  had  been  seen  at  Ford's,  occupying  a  box  with 

33  North  Dakota  Historical  Quarterly,  Jan.  1927;  p.  17. 


126  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

the  Misses  Hale.  It  was  believed  that  he  was  engaged  to  one  of 
them.  Junius  stated  to  a  correspondent  of  the  Chicago  Times 
that  such  was  the  fact.  Asia  says  there  was  "a  secret  and  conditional 
engagement."  33  Mrs.  Blanche  (Chapman)  Ford  informed  the  pres- 
ent writer  that  in  the  world  of  the  theater  an  engagement  to 
Maggie  Mitchell  was  rumored. 

Writing  from  Franklin,  Pennsylvania,  on  February  21st,  his 
agent  Simonds  complained: 

Your  strange  note  of  the  16th  rec'd  I  hardly  know  what  to  make  of 
you  this  winter — so  different  from  your  usual  self.  Have  you  lost  all  your 
ambition  or  what  is  the  matter.  Don't  get  offended  with  me  John  but  I 
cannot  but  think  you  are  wasting  your  time  spending  the  entire  season 
in  Washington  doing  nothing  where  it  must  be  expensive  to  live  and 
all  for  no  other  purpose  beyond  pleasure. 

If  you  had  taken  5  or  10000  dollars  and  come  out  here  and  spent  the 
season  living  here  with  us,  traveling  off  over  the  country  hunting  up 
property  I  believe  we  both  could  have  made  considerable  money  by  it. 
It  is  not  too  late  yet  for  I  believe  the  great  rush  for  property  is  to  be 
this  Spring  and  if  you  are  not  going  to  act  this  season  come  out  here 
John  where  at  least  you  can  live  prudently  and  where  I  really  believe 
you  can  make  money.  Come  John  immediately  We  have  plenty  of  room 
at  our  house  now. 

You  must  not  tell  such  extravagant  stories  John  about  me.  We  work 
very  hard  and  from  the  office  derive  so  far  a  very  comfortable  income 
but  nothing  even  compared  to  what  you  used  to  make  acting — large 
indeed  though  compared  with  what  we  formerly  rec'd.  We  have  not  got 
rich  yet  John  and  when  I  do  you  will  be  the  first  one  to  know  of  it.  But 
I  do  wish  you  had  come  out  here  and  staid  this  winter  and  still  wish 
you  would  come  now.  It  would  be  more  profitable  than  living  in  Wash- 
ington. .  .  ,34 

If  John  had  gone,  he  might  not  have  made  a  fortune  in  the 
"oil  business"— even  if  the  optimistic  Simonds  did  look  to  a  boom 
with  the  first  rustle  of  spring.  But  the  history  of  America  might 
have  been  different. 

33  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  Apr.  22,  1865;  p.  2.  "The  Unlocked  Book"  (London  ed.), 
p.  118. 

34  Archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 


Si 


X CHARITY  AND  HATE 


"IF  to  be  the  head  of  Hell  is  as  hard  as  what  I  have  to  undergo 
here,  I  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  pity  Satan  himself"— so,  with 
that  latent  sadness  in  his  eyes,  the  harrowed  Lincoln  once  told 
General  Schenck.  At  another  time,  in  sprightlier  mood,  and 
doubtless  with  a  wry  smile,  he  protested: 

"I  wish  George  Washington  or  some  of  those  old  patriots  were 
here  in  my  place  so  that  I  could  have  a  little  rest." 

Leonard  Volk  had  made  a  life  mask  of  him  at  Chicago  in  April 
of  i860;  and  in  the  spring  of  1865,  at  Washington,  Clark  Mills 
(who  did  Andrew  Jackson  on  his  prancing  charger  in  Lafayette 
Square)  made  another.  In  these  contrasting  masks,  more  effectively 
than  in  photographs,  may  be  read  the  toll  that  the  war  years  had 
laid  upon  him.  The  second,  as  Hay  points  out,  has  the  deeply  cut 
lines  "set,  as  if  the  living  face,  like  the  copy,  had  been  in  bronze; 
.  .  .  the  mouth  is  fixed  like  that  of  an  archaic  statue;  a  look  as  of 
one  on  whom  sorrow  and  care  had  done  their  worst  without  vic- 
tory is  on  all  the  features."  .  .  . 

It  is  the  Lincoln  whom  Crook,  on  duty  in  the  passageway,  heard 
groaning  in  his  sleep— the  Lincoln  who  said  to  Owen  Lovejoy 
("the  best  friend  I  had  in  Congress"):  "This  war  is  eating  my 
life  out;  I  have  a  strong  impression  that  I  shall  not  live  to  see 
the  end."  In  July  1864,  when  a  visitor,  noticing  how  worn  he 
seemed,  had  remarked,  "You  are  wearing  yourself  out  with 
work,"  he  objected:  "I  can't  work  less;  but  it  isn't  that— work 
never  troubled  me." 

There  had  been  the  expose  in  Baltimore,  the  night  trip  through 
the  city— the  reluctant  conviction  that  men  sought  his  life.  He  had 

127 


128  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

become  identified  with  a  cause,  and  all  through  his  first  term  he 
was  made  aware  that,  hating  the  cause,  men  also  hated  him.  Yet 
such  was  his  nature,  so  inclined  was  he  to  "give  all  men  credit  for 
fairness  and  sincerity,"  that  even  after  the  mob  attack  on  the  19th 
and  the  ensuing  "three  glorious  days"  he  was  conciliatory,  says 
Hay,  toward  "a  penitent  and  suppliant  crowd  of  conditional 
Secessionists  from  Baltimore,  who  havinsr  sowed  the  wind  seem 
to  have  no  particular  desire  to  reap  the  whirlwind." 

As  he  waited  for  news  of  hourly  developments  in  the  South, 
office-seekers  had  at  once  beset  him  in  droves,  until  he  compared 
himself  to  "a  man  so  busy  in  letting  rooms  in  one  end  of  his 
house  that  he  cannot  stop  to  put  out  the  fire  that  is  burning  the 
other."  When  civilian  patriots  had  rushed  to  urge  upon  him  their 
singular  fitness  for  a  general's  commission,  he  said  he  had  more 
pegs  than  holes  in  which  to  put  them. 

For  his  Cabinet  he  had  selected  those  who  would,  as  he  thought, 
best  serve  the  nation  in  parlous  days;  and  as  a  result  he  had  been 
blessed  with  a  council  painfully  independent,  inharmonious,  and 
incohesive.  Their  reciprocal  dislikes  were  always  troublesome. 
As  his  bulky  diary  reveals,  Welles  of  the  Navy  did  not  relish  either 
Chase  of  the  Treasury  or  Seward  of  the  State  Department.  In  re- 
turn it  was  said  that  Gustavus  V.  Fox,  chief  clerk  of  the  Navy  De- 
partment and  later  assistant  secretary,  was  really  the  Department's 
brains;  and  some  were  not  displeased  when  a  petition  to  Lincoln 
for  Welles'  removal  was  exhibited  in  the  Merchants'  Exchange 
and  Newsroom  at  Boston  and  "extensively  signed." 

Discord  reigned  between  Seward  and  Chase;  and  in  reporting 
hostile  or  disloyal  acts  on  Chase's  part  an  under-secretary  in  the 
Department  of  State  would  finish  with:  "The  old  man  [Lincoln] 
knows  all  about  it  and  will  not  do  a  thing!"  *  Blair,  head  of  the 
Post  Office,  denounced  both  Stanton  and  Chase.  Chase  encouraged 
conservative  Republican  senators  who  wished  to  get  rid  of  Seward; 
but  Seward,  after  an  ineffectual  experiment  toward  domineering 
over  Lincoln,  wrote  to  his  wife  that  "the  President  is  the  best  of 
us"  and  became  thenceforth  a  stanch  and  worthy  aid.  On  the 
contrary  the  elegant,  stately  Chase,  potentially  the  Cabinet's 
ablest  member,  not  only  kept  toward  his  chief  an  attitude  of  dis- 

1  A.  K.  McClure,  "Our  Presidents  and  How  We  Make  Them,"  pp.  125,  128,  131-132. 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  129 

dain  and  mistrust  but  through  jealousy  and  ambition  conde- 
scended to  skulking  intrigues  against  him.  He  actually  fostered 
a  movement  to  hold,  prior  to  the  regular  Republican  convention 
of  1864,  an  independent  convention  in  protest  against  Lincoln's 
candidacy.  Finally  Lincoln  accepted  one  of  Chase's  numerous 
resignations,  and  then,  when  old  Roger  Taney— Taney  of  the 
Dred  Scott  case— passed  away,  returned  good  for  evil  by  naming 
Chase  to  be  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  In  Carpenter's 
painting  "The  First  Reading  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation" 
(which  hangs  above  the  eastern  grand  staircase  of  the  Capitol) 
you  may  see  Chase  standing  with  an  expression  of  magisterial 
complacence  beside  the  seated  Lincoln. 

When  Cameron  had  been  eased  from  the  secretariat  of  War, 
Lincoln  did  a  characteristic  thing  in  appointing  Edwin  M.  Stan- 
ton, Buchanan's  Attorney-General,  to  the  vacant  post.  Stanton— 
the  "Great  Energy,"  as  friends  sometimes  called  him— petulant, 
explosive,  brusque,  incorruptibly  honest,  prodigious  in  toil— came 
gradually  to  an  appreciation  of  Lincoln;  and  though  he  never 
ceased  to  be  rude  at  times  ("No  one  who  ever  saw  Mr.  Stanton," 
declared  "Bull  Run"  Russell,  "would  expect  from  him  courtesy 
of  manner  or  delicacy  of  feeling"  .  .  .),  nevertheless  between 
President  and  Secretary  confidence  and  regard  existed.  "It  is  a 
fact"— so  we  are  assured  by  David  H.  Bates,  manager  of  the  War 
Department's  telegraph  office—".  .  .  that  during  the  three  and  a 
quarter  years  of  their  close  official  relations  the  two  men  worked 
in  almost  entire  harmony.  There  never  appeared,  to  the  writer's 
observation,  any  real  conflict  between  them.  .  .  .  Each  knew 
how  far  to  yield  to  the  other  without  sacrifice  of  prerogative." 

"Folks  come  up  here,"  Lincoln  once  remarked,  "and  tell  me 
there  are  a  great  many  men  who  have  all  Stanton's  excellent 
qualities  without  his  defects.  All  I  have  to  say  is,  I  haven't  met 
'em;  I  don't  know  'em." 

Every  office  day,  from  10  to  11  and  from  3  to  4,  Stanton  gave 
audience.  A  perpetually  irritable  look  in  his  stern  little  eyes,  he 
stood  at  a  high  writing-desk,  leaning  his  left  arm  upon  it,  from 
time  to  time  adjusting  his  spectacles,  and  curtly  propelling  his 
visitors  into  the  world  of  out-of-doors.  He  had  a  brownish  beard, 
threaded  with  gray,  and  it  was  a  fancy  of  Lincoln's  to  accost  him 


130  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

as  "Mars."  Though  he  has  been  represented  as  largely  deficient 
in  a  sense  of  humor,  he  had— so  Dickens  himself  told  James  T. 
Fields— a  most  extraordinary  knowledge  of  Dickens'  works,  and  "a 
power  of  taking  the  text  up  at  any  point."  The  "outer  crust  of 
his  harsh  manner,"  David  Bates  argued,  was  "very  thin"— but  it 
was  thick  enough  to  incense  the  many  that  could  not  pierce  it. 

Lincoln  managed  his  unruly  Cabinet  with  peculiar  success,  and 
in  the  prosecution  of  the  war  he  could  rely  upon  Stanton;  but 
neither  Stanton  nor  he  had  the  recipe  for  making  generals  out  of 
mud,  as  Napoleon  bragged  he  made  marshals.  "And  oh,  there  is 
great  want  of  capacity  and  will  among  our  military  leaders"— thus 
mourned  the  diarizing  Welles  in  August  1862.  There  had  been 
overcast  days  that  tried  even  Lincoln's  enduring  soul— days  when 
loyal  Northern  hearts  grew  weary,  when  defeatism  spread  among 
the  people,  and  when  Vallandigham  the  demagogue  could  clamor, 
"The  war  is  in  your  hands  a  most  bloody  and  costly  failure."  The 
conscription  act  had  been  flouted,  Copperheadism  had  flourished, 
and  there  had  been  much  talk  of  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle 
and  their  successors,  the  Order  of  American  Knights  and  the  Sons 
of  Liberty— secret  organizations  of  ill-defined  extent  that  opposed 
the  war,  defied  the  President,  and  plotted  armed  uprising.  No 
wonder  Lincoln  had  demanded:  "Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded 
soldier-boy  who  deserts,  while  I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily 
agitator  who  induces  him  to  desert?" 

During  Federal  reverses  even  avowed  Unionists  raised  violent 
language  against  the  Administration.  Service  men,  exalted  with 
rotgut,  defamed  their  commander-in-chief— Doster  tells  of  a 
lieutenant  colonel  summarily  dismissed  for  disrespectful  remarks 
about  the  President.  Well-meaning  critics,  amateur  and  profes- 
sional, singly  and  by  platoons,  had  made  nuisances  of  themselves 
as  they  eagerly  pointed  out  his  shortcomings  and  sought  to  in- 
struct him.  He  had  said  to  one  delegation  that  waited  on  him: 

Gentlemen,  suppose  all  the  property  you  were  worth  was  in  gold,  and 
you  had  put  it  in  the  hands  of  Blondin  to  carry  across  the  Niagara  2 
river  on  a  rope.  Would  you  shake  the  cable,  or  keep  shouting  out  to 

2  Blondin  was  the  professional  name  of  Jean  Gravelet  (1824-1897),  spectacular 
tight-rope  performer,  who  won  fame  in  1859-1860  by  his  exhibitions  on  a  rope 
stretched  at  a  height  of  160  feet  above  the  falls  of  the  Niagara. 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  131 

him:  "Blondin,  stand  up  a  little  straighter — Blondin,  stoop  a  little 
more — go  a  little  faster — lean  a  little  more  to  the  north — lean  a  little 
more  to  the  south"?  .  .  .  The  Government  are  carrying  an  immense 
weight.  Untold  treasures  are  in  their  hands.  They  are  doing  the  very 
best  they  can.  Don't  badger  them.  Keep  silence  and  we'll  get  you  safe 
across. 

He  had  been  cartooned,  lampooned,  reviled  with  a  frantic 
malignity.  The  odious  institution  of  slavery,  based  on  "that  cardi- 
nal principle  of  error  that  any  race  is  without  its  human  claim" 
and  afflictively  paradoxical  in  a  so-called  "land  of  the  free,"  had 
diffused  its  poison  through  the  whole  organic  structure  of  Ameri- 
can life.  Both  the  newspaper  and  periodical  press  of  the  North  not 
only  had  indulged  in  vulgar  personalities  but  had  vaunted  insolent 
sedition  and  scandalous  treason. 

There  had  been  private  unhappiness  and  grief;  unremitting 
contact  "with  importunity  which  he  could  not  satisfy,  and  with 
distress  which  he  could  not  always  relieve";  broken  sleep  and 
meals  eaten  abstractedly,  meals  too  scant  for  the  great  frame  and 
the  heavy  task— for  breakfast,  an  egg  and  a  cup  of  coffee;  for 
luncheon,  a  biscuit  and  a  glass  of  milk.  There  had  been  no  vaca- 
tion, no  holiday,  no  change  from  the  plaguy  Washington  summers 
—such  reliefs  had  been  for  Hay  or  Nicolay  or  Stoddard  but  not 
for  "the  Ancient." 

Gen.  Neal  Dow,  exchanged  for  Fitzhugh  Lee  and  released  from 
Libby  Prison,  warned  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
that  if  another  candidate  were  substituted  for  Lincoln  in  the 
election  of  1 864  the  South  would  naturally  look  upon  such  action 
as  a  repudiation  of  Lincoln's  policy  and  would  feel  certain  that 
peace,  with  formal  dissolution  of  the  Union,  must  inevitably  fol- 
low. Emerson  supposed  that  never  before  in  history  had  so  much 
been  staked  upon  a  popular  vote.  Yet  within  Lincoln's  own  party, 
some— especially  Ben  Wade  of  Ohio  and  Henry  Winter  Davis  of 
Maryland— violently  attacked  the  party's  nominee.  Davis  would 
have  much  preferred  either  Wade  or  Chase,  and  only  reluctantly 
did  he  abandon  hope  of  Lincoln's  withdrawal. 

Nevertheless  this  "minority  President"  had  been  re-elected  by 
a  huge  popular  majority,  with  212  out  of  233  votes  in  the  Elec- 
toral College.  The  fortunes  of  war  had  changed;  the  struggle  was 


132  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

in  its  last  phase.  The  "mighty  scourge"  was  to  pass  away,  the 
burden  was  to  be  lifted.  Many  who,  like  Garrison,  had  not  under- 
stood Lincoln,  had  now  become  his  friends.  Republicans  who  had 
informed  him  that  his  candidacy  was  hopeless  had  been  eating 
their  words.  Confidence  in  him  was  returning  to  honest  but 
timorous  folk  who  had  wavered. 

On  March  20th,  1865,  from  camp  at  City  Point,  at  the  junction 
of  the  Appomattox  with  the  James,  Grant  telegraphed  to  Lincoln: 

Can  you  not  visit  City  Point  for  a  day  or  two?  I  would  like  very  much 
to  see  you,  and  I  think  the  rest  would  do  you  good. 

The  President  accepted,  left  Washington  on  the  River  Queen 
on  the  23rd,  reached  City  Point  on  the  evening  of  the  24th.  While 
there  he  lived  aboard  the  steamer  but  had  headquarters  in 
Coloner  Bowers'  tent,  with  S.  H.  Beckwith,  Grant's  own  teleg- 
rapher and  cipher  operator,  to  keep  him  in  touch  with  the 
army  and  the  War  Department.  He  rode  Cincinnati,  one  of 
Grant's  two  favorite  mounts,  around  the  camp  and  out  into  the 
neighboring  country. 

Though  the  visit  was  to  be  a  "rest,"  Lincoln  found  much  to 
do.  Grant  was  maturing  plans  for  a  concerted  advance,  and  Sher- 
man and  Admiral  Porter  traveled  from  North  Carolina  for  a 
council  of  war.  Both  of  them  were  forcibly  impressed  with  Lin- 
coln's desire  for  mercy  to  the  vanquished.  Petersburg  fell  on  April 
2nd  and  on  the  next  day,  having  written  a  dispatch  notifying 
Stanton  that  he  was  bound  for  the  front,  Lincoln  rode  to  a  con- 
ference with  Grant.  His  ride  back  to  City  Point  was  the  last 
horseback  ride  he  ever  took. 

When  he  got  there,  a  telegram  from  Stanton  was  delivered  to 
him.  "Ought  you,"  challenged  the  Secretary,  "to  expose  the  Nation 
to  the  consequences  of  any  disaster  to  yourself  in  the  pursuit  of 
a  treacherous  and  dangerous  enemy  like  the  rebel  army?"  In  his 
reply,  Lincoln  said: 

Thanks  for  your  caution;  but  I  have  already  been  to  Petersburg, 
staid  with  Gen.  Grant  an  hour  &  a  half  and  returned  here.  It  is  certain 
now  that  Richmond  is  in  our  hands,  and  I  think  I  will  go  there  to- 
morrow. I  will  take  care  of  myself. 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  133 

He  did  go  to  Richmond,  up  the  James  on  the  River  Queen; 
walked  with  a  small  escort  to  the  Confederate  Mansion;  took 
two  drives  through  the  city;  was  joyously  hailed  by  the  Negroes; 
suffered  no  harm  whatever,  and  returned  on  the  5th.  On  the  6th 
he  telegraphed  to  Grant,  now  close  upon  the  heels  of  Lee's  broken 
force,  that  he  would  soon  have  to  leave  for  Washington,  as  Seward 
had  been  thrown  from  his  carriage  and  seriously  injured,  and 
other  matters  required  attention. 

He  insisted  upon  a  tour  of  the  hospitals  at  City  Point,  saying 
he  would  probably  never  see  the  boys  again  and  wished  them  to 
know  he  appreciated  what  they  had  done  for  their  country. 
So  he  had  shaken  hands  with  about  6,000  men— the  chief  sur- 
geon said  the  President's  arm  must  surely  ache  and  might  be 
lamed.  Lincoln,  however,  stepped  outside,  took  up  a  heavy  ax 
that  lay  there,  chopped  busily  into  a  log  for  a  few  minutes,  then, 
clasping  the  extreme  end  of  the  helve,  steadily  held  the  ax  hori- 
zontal at  the  full  length  of  his  right  arm.  Not  another  man  there 
could  sustain  it  in  that  position. 

On  the  8th  the  River  Queen  steamed  down  the  James  on  the 
way  home.  The  next  day  was  Sunday.  It  seemed  peaceful  now 
along  these  waterways,  and  all  was  peaceful  in  the  River  Queen's 
cabin,  for  Lincoln  guided  the  talk  to  Shakespeare.  He  read  aloud 
from  "Macbeth."  A  small  party  was  there  to  listen— Charles  Sum- 
ner and  his  friend  the  Marquis  de  Chambrun,  Senator  Harlan  of 
Iowa  and  Mrs.  Harlan,  Mrs.  Lincoln.  As  he  read,  he  came  to  Mac- 
beth's  lines  in  the  second  scene  of  the  third  act: 

Duncan  is  in  his  grave; 
After  life's  fitful  fever,  he  sleeps  well; 
Treason  has  done  his  worst:  nor  steel  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  further! 

He  read  the  passage  and  then,  as  Sumner  called  to  mind,  he 
paused.  There  was  the  rhythmic  beat  of  the  engines,  the  ruffling 
of  the  water— and  he  went  back  and  read  it  through  again.  To 
Harlan's  view  the  President's  melancholy  air  had  been  yielding 
to  an  expression  of  serene  joy,  as  if  his  life's  mission  had  been 
accomplished.   The    Marquis  would   one   day   ponder   strangely 


134  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

whether  the  poetry  alone  had  drawn  the  reader  back  ("I  think 
nothing  equals  'Macbeth,'  "  Lincoln  had  written  to  Hackett)  or 
some  premonition  had  faintly  stirred  within  him. 

On  the  day  in  i860  when  he  had  been  made  candidate  of  his 
party,  he  had  stretched  out  upon  a  couch  in  an  upstairs  room  of 
the  house  at  Springfield.  In  a  mirror— a  tilted  mirror  fixed  to  a 
bureau— he  had  distinctly  seen  two  images  of  himself,  one  slightly 
paler  than  the  other.  Next  day  he  had  experimented  and,  finding 
the  effect  repeated,  decided  it  could  be  accounted  for  by  some 
scientific  principle  unknown  to  him.  But  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  been 
troubled,  believing  it  a  sign  that  though  he  would  be  re-elected  he 
would  not  live  through  his  second  term. 

Such  incidents  were  to  be  retold  and  embroidered  upon  in 
after  days.  Lincoln  was  to  take  on  the  guise  of  a  prophet— of  a 
survival  from  the  ages  when  mystics  beheld  portents  and  visions. 

The  River  Queen  moved  on,  by  points  and  backwaters,  up  the 
storied  Potomac,  bringing  the  President  at  the  day's  end  to  his 
capital.  There  Stanton  had  received  from  Grant  the  message: 
"General  Lee  surrendered  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  this 
afternoon  on  terms  proposed  by  myself." 

Lincoln  went  across  to  Seward's  house  on  the  east  side  of 
Lafayette  Square.  Seward's  right  arm  had  been  broken  close  to  the 
shoulder  joint  and  his  jaw  had  been  fractured  in  two  places.  His 
head  and  neck  had  been  encased  in  a  steel  frame  intended  to  hold 
the  broken  jawbone  while  it  was  knitting.  This  framework,  un- 
pleasant though  it  was  to  the  wearer,  became  the  means  of  saving 
his  life  in  a  manner  which  a  surgeon  would  never  have  imagined. 
After  words  of  sympathy  and  cheer,  Lincoln  told  of  his  visit  to 
Richmond  and  of  Lee's  surrender,  and  with  an  almost  boylike 
delight  hailed  the  advent  of  peace.  It  was  the  last  talk  between 
the  President  and  his  Secretary  of  State,  who  once  had  referred  to 
him  as  "a  little  Illinois  attorney,"  but  who,  like  Stanton,  had 
grown  in  process  of  time  to  a  fuller  comprehension. 

On  Monday  morning  the  town  woke  to  the  news  of  Appomattox. 
Strangers  exchanged  congratulations,  bands  began  to  strike  up, 
work  in  government  departments  was  laid  aside,  the  guns  of  the 
forts  around  Washington  enveloped  it  with  their  booming. 
Crowds  formed  and,  led  by  a  band,  went  here  and  there  to  ask  for 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  135 

speeches.  Hearing  a  din  outside  the  Executive  Mansion,  Lincoln 
stepped  to  an  upper  window.  To  cries  of  "Speech!  speech!"  he 
responded: 

My  friends,  you  call  for  a  speech,  but  I  cannot  make  a  speech  at  this 
time;  undue  importance  might  be  given  to  what  I  would  say.  ...  If 
you  will  come  here  to-morrow  evening,  I  will  have  something  to  say  to 
you.  You  have  a  band  with  you,  and  there  is  one  piece  of  music  I  have 
always  liked  which  heretofore  has  not  seemed  proper  to  make  use  of  in 
the  North,  but  now  by  virtue  of  my  prerogative  as  President  of  the 
United  States  and  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  I  declare 
it  contraband  of  war  and  our  lawful  prize:  I  ask  the  band  to  play 
"Dixie." 

Which  the  band  thereupon  did,  amid  noisy  cheers.  All  day  people 
roved  the  uneven  brick  sidewalks  and  horsemen  trotted  through 
the  mud. 

Not  all  Washington  rejoiced.  Confederate  prisoners  were  there 
in  numbers,  out  on  parole.  Confederate  deserters— and  Confed- 
erate desertions  had  been  heavy— were  there.  Sympathizers  with 
the  Confederacy  were  there.  "On  the  day  of  the  taking  of  Rich- 
mond," wrote  the  Marquis  de  Chambrun,  "I  had  seen  among 
other  things  a  'gentleman'  purchase  a  newspaper  which  contained 
one  of  the  first  telegrams  announcing  the  capture  of  the  town,  then 
crumple  it,  and  throw  it  violently  to  the  ground."  Byron  B.  John- 
son, employed  in  the  War  Department,  lived  on  H  Street,  between 
Ninth  and  Tenth.  Across  his  fence  a  Negro  girl,  born  a  slave  and 
working  for  a  family  next  door,  whispered,  "Rebel  flag  in  de  par- 
lor under  de  carpet  in  front."  Yet  two  members  of  that  family 
were  clerks  in  the  Treasury  Department,  even  as  Louis  Weich- 
mann  was  drawing  a  salary  in  the  office  of  the  commissary-general 
of  prisoners.  Doubtless  when  Early  threatened  Washington  in 
July  1864,  many  another  flag  was  in  readiness  to  welcome  him  if 
he  got  into  the  city. 

Nevertheless  the  week  beginning  April  gth  was  evidently  to  be 
a  week  of  large  festivity.  The  town  was  to  be  illumined  grandly 
on  the  night  of  the  13th,  and  on  the  14th  Anderson  would  be  rais- 
ing the  old  banner  over  the  Fort  Sumter  he  had  been  obliged  to 
relinquish  in  1861.  Already,  on  the  night  of  April  4th,  Washing- 
ton had  seen  the  Capitol  resplendent  with  gas-lights  innumerable 


136  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

to  the  crown  of  its  new  dome,  while  the  eastern  portico  wore 
upon  its  stately  front  a  transparency  with  the  words:  THIS  IS 
THE  LORD'S  DOING;  IT  IS  MARVELOUS  IN  OUR  EYES. 
But  now,  on  the  13th,  all  buildings  were  to  be  lighted  up;  and 
meantime  there  were  to  be  parades  and  serenades— in  that  in- 
genuous era  the  serenade  en  masse  was  an  American  rite  of  public 
tribute— and  what  Hay  might  have  called  a  general  hifalute. 

A  large  throng  collected  at  the  Executive  Mansion  on  the  night 
of  April  11th  to  hear  the  promised  speech.  At  a  second-floor  win- 
dow Lincoln  read  from  manuscript  a  carefully  prepared  address. 
It  had  to  do  with  the  question  of  reconstruction  in  Louisiana  and 
obliquely  with  the  whole  problem  of  reconstruction  throughout 
the  entire  South.  He  wished  to  get  the  Southern  commonwealths 
once  more  into  their  "proper  relation"  to  the  Union.  "I  believe," 
he  said  "that  it  is  not  only  possible,  but,  in  fact,  easier,  to  do  this 
without  deciding,  or  even  considering,  whether  these  States  have 
ever  been  out  of  the  Union,  than  with  it.  Finding  themselves 
safely  at  home,  it  would  be  utterly  immaterial  whether  they 
had  ever  been  abroad." 

Thus  he  urged  tact,  sufferance.  Not  everything  had  gone  well  in 
Louisiana  but  a  beginning  had  been  made.  "Concede  that  the 
new  government  of  Louisiana  is  to  what  it  should  be  as  the  egg 
is  to  the  fowl,  we  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by  hatching  the  egg 
than  by  smashing  it."  It  was  a  Lincolnian  touch;  his  audience  had 
been  reckoning  upon  something  like  that,  and  it  broke  into 
laughter.  Details,  he  went  on,  could  not  be  worked  out  by  any 
"exclusive  and  inflexible  plan."  "In  the  present  situation,  as  the 
phrase  goes,  it  may  be  my  duty  to  make  some  new  announcement 
to  the  people  of  the  South.  I  am  considering  and  shall  not  fail 
to  act  when  satisfied  that  action  will  be  proper."  The  crowd 
looked  up  at  him  as  he  stood  there,  a  kind  of  nimbus  thrown 
about  him  from  a  lamp  held  beside  him  as  he  read;  then  it  scat- 
tered into  the  night.  That  announcement  was  never  to  be  heard, 
nor  was  Abraham  Lincoln  ever  again  to  speak  in  public. 

It  seems  that  Marshal  Lamon  had  from  time  to  time  been  dis- 
quieted by  an  inner  conviction   of  some   danger   approaching 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  137 

Lincoln.  During  the  night  of  November  8th-gth,  1864,  after  the  re- 
turns had  shown  Lincoln's  election,  Lamon  appeared  at  the  Execu- 
tive Mansion  and  discussed  with  Hay  the  Chief  Justiceship; 
favoring  Stanton  for  the  post  instead  of  Chase  and  thinking— as 
did  Hay— that  Lincoln  could  not  well  select  an  enemy  like  Chase. 
"He  took  a  glass  of  whiskey,"  Hay  recorded,  "and  then,  refusing 
my  offer  of  a  bed,  went  out  &,  rolling  himself  up  in  his  cloak, 
lay  down  at  the  President's  door;  passing  the  night  in  that  atti- 
tude of  touching  and  dumb  fidelity,  with  a  small  arsenal  of  pistols 
&  bowie  knives  around  him." 

Lamon  was  now  away  to  Richmond  on  an  errand  for  Lincoln, 
but  before  going  he  saw  John  P.  Usher,  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
and  asked  Usher  to  induce  Lincoln  to  use  greater  caution  regard- 
ing his  personal  safety,  especially  about  going  out  in  public  while 
Lamon  was  absent.  Lamon  and  Usher  went  to  call  on  the  Presi- 
dent. "Will  you  make  me  a  promise?"  Lamon  asked.  Lincoln 
answered  carelessly,  "I  think  I  can  venture  to  say  I  will.  What  is 
it?" 

"Promise  me  you  will  not  go  out  at  night  while  I  am  gone, 
particularly  to  the  theater." 

But  this  was  too  much— Lincoln  was  not  inclined  to  cede  pro- 
prietary rights  to  the  Marshal,  and  would  say  no  more  than,  "Well, 
I  promise  to  do  the  best  I  can  toward  it." 

Ever  since  that  night  journey  through  Baltimore  he  had  had 
very  definite  ideas  as  to  this  matter.  He  had  lived  safely  during 
years  of  war;  had  come  and  gone  as  his  duty  had  seemed  to  require; 
had  stood  under  fire  on  the  parapet  of  Fort  Stevens;  had  walked 
the  streets  of  burning  Richmond.  If  anybody  really  wishes  to  kill 
me,  he  now  said  to  Lamon,  "he  can  do  it  any  day  or  night  if  he  is 
ready  to  give  his  life  for  mine." 

For  several  weeks  Lamon  had  been  telling  Orville  Browning 
(an  ex-senator  from  Illinois)  that  he  believed  the  President  would 
be  assassinated.  "But,"  Browning  wrote,  "I  had  no  fear  whatever 
that  such  an  event  would  occur.  I  thought  his  life  of  very  great 
importance  to  the  rebels— he  was  disposed  to  be  very  lenient  and 
merciful  to  them  and  to  smooth  the  way  for  their  return  to  their 
allegiance.  I  thought  him  the  best  friend  they  had  among  those 


138  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

in  authority  and  that  they  were  beginning  to  appreciate  the  fact, 
and  that  his  life  would  be  dear  to  them  as  to  us."  3 

On  the  evening  of  Tuesday,  March  21st,  two  days  before  Lin- 
coln started  for  City  Point,  John  Booth  had  left  Washington  on 
the  7:30  express.  He  went  to  New  York,  and  on  his  way  back 
stopped  over  at  Baltimore  on  Saturday  the  25th  and  sent  for  Ar- 
nold, who  was  in  Hookstown  at  William  Arnold's  farm.  Before 
Arnold  could  get  to  Baltimore  by  omnibus  from  the  country, 
Booth,  having  met  O'Laughlin,  departed  for  Washington.  On 
Monday  (the  27th)  Arnold  wrote  to  Booth  the  letter  of  reproof 
and  warning  to  which  reference  has  previously  been  made,  and  in 
the  course  of  the  week,  at  O'Laughlin's  request,  he  accompanied 
O'Laughlin  on  a  day's  trip  to  Washington,  returning  that  eve- 
ning.4 It  was  probably  then  that  Samuel  Streett,  who  had  known 
O'Laughlin  from  boyhood,  saw  him  on  "the  avenue"  (that  is, 
Pennsylvania  Avenue)  in  talk  with  John  Booth.  Arnold  took  the 
Norfolk  boat  on  the  afternoon  of  April  1st  for  his  job  at  Old 
Point  with  Wharton  the  sutler.  O'Laughlin,  according  to  testi- 
mony, was  in  Baltimore  from  March  30th  to  April  12th. 

Though  evidently  reluctant  to  break  with  Booth,  Arnold  had 
a  wholesome  respect  for  Lieutenant  Colonel  Woolley,  General 
Wallace's  provost  marshal  in  Baltimore,  and  for  Major  Smith, 
the  chief  of  detectives.  He  wished  to  go  to  Old  Point  and  knew 
that  everybody  going  thither  from  Baltimore  had  to  obtain  a  pass 
at  the  office  of  the  provost  marshal.  Hence  it  behooved  him  not  to 
get  into  difficulties  with  Major  Smith's  men.  His  own  family  was 
uncomfortably  inquisitive  about  his  month's  absence  in  Washing- 
ton, and  Hookstown  people  sometimes  asked  embarrassing  ques- 
tions. He  was  truly  minded  now  to  "cut  loose  forever,"  as  he  put 
it,  from  John  Booth's  reckless  schemes;  but  in  writing  to  Booth 
he  foolishly  sought  to  appease  him  with  "Time  more  propitious 
will  arrive  yet"  and  "ere  long  I  shall  be  better  prepared  to  again 
be  with  you":  and  he  signified  his  readiness  to  meet  John  at  Bar- 
num's  Hotel. 

Davy  Herold  was  at  home  (the  Herolds  lived  on  Eighth  Street, 

3  Browning's  "Diary"   (edited  by  Pease  and  Randall),  vol.  ii,  pp.  18-19.  Browning 
became  Secretary  of  the  Interior  in  1866. 

4  Arnold  thought  this  was  on  Fri.,  Mar.  31,  but  P.  H.  Maulsby,  O'Laughlin's 
brother-in-law,  testified  that  O'Laughlin  was  in  Baltimore  on  that  day. 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  139 

over  near  the  Navy  Yard),  collecting  rents  when  they  fell  due  on 
properties  the  widowed  Mrs.  Herold  owned,  or  teasing  his  sisters, 
of  whom  he  had  no  less  than  seven.  Paine  and  Atzerodt  were 
still  hanging  about,  living  pleasantly  enough  on  John's  bounty— 
Atzerodt  at  the  Pennsylvania  House,  Paine  at  the  Herndon;  and 
John  Surratt  had  set  out  for  Richmond  on  March  23rd  as  escort 
to  a  Mrs.  Slater,  who  was  a  Confederate  agent  of  some  kind— 
probably  a  bearer  of  dispatches. 

Booth  was  furious  at  the  collapse  of  his  long-fostered  design- 
furious  with  those  of  his  henchmen  who  now  urged  discretion, 
and  more  furious  because  he  knew  Arnold  was  right  in  counsel- 
ing, "Do  not  act  rashly  or  in  haste."  He  had  denounced  Matthews 
to  Chester  for  being  frightened  and  had  talked  wildly  about  ruin- 
ing Chester  if  Chester  did  not  take  part.  At  the  meeting  of  March 
15th  he  had  spoken  to  Arnold  "in  a  stern,  commanding  and  angry 
voice."  "Do  you  know,"  he  had  exclaimed,  "you  are  liable  to  be 
shot?"  Arnold  had  objected  that  even  if  Lincoln  were  captured, 
the  vehicle  would  be  halted  by  the  sentinel  at  the  bridge.  "Shoot 
the  sentinel!"  Booth  cried— he  seemed  exceedingly  quick  on  the 
trigger  and  quite  intolerant  of  Arnold  and  O'Laughlin,  both  of 
whom  argued  that  if  an  alarm  were  given  at  the  bridge,  the 
game  would  immediately  be  up.  "You  can  be  the  leader  of  the 
party,"  Arnold  had  said,  "but  not  my  executioner." 

The  Booth  who  had  been  so  even-tempered,  who  had  been,  even 
when  in  his  cups,  so  wary  of  entrance  to  a  quarrel,  had  now  grown 
irascible  and  out  of  humor.  Old  friends  like  Arnold,  Matthews, 
or  O'Laughlin,  lackeys  such  as  Atzerodt  or  Herold  or  Paine— he 
was  ready  to  endanger  or  sacrifice  them  all,  if  only  he  might  do 
this  marvelous  thing— if  only  he  might  deliver  up  as  a  prisoner  to 
the  South  the  man  whom  he  held  responsible  for  the  South's 
distress.  "You  find  fault  with  everything  about  it,"  he  had  snarled 
at  O'Laughlin  and  Arnold  when  they  pointed  out  defects  in  his 
strategy.  The  truth  was,  no  doubt,  that  he  himself  was  beginning 
to  realize  that  the  abduction  of  a  President  was  a  bit  more  com- 
plex than  he  had  supposed. 

Obviously  his  strange  cavalcade,  if  it  often  appeared  in  force  in 
Washington's  streets,  was  bound  to  attract  the  unfavorable  notice 
of  the   provost  marshal's  office.   Who  could   know   in   advance 


140  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

whether  Lincoln  would  or  would  not  be  accompanied  by  a  detail 
of  the  Union  Light  Guard?  The  lonely  road  to  the  Soldiers'  Home, 
beyond  the  city  limits,  would  be  favorable  to  a  surprise,  but  of 
course  Lincoln  had  not  yet  moved  to  his  summer  quarters.  The 
President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  quite  often  of  a  Sunday  morning 
walked  out  New  York  Avenue  to  attend  the  Presbyterian  Church 
(Doctor  Gurley's),  but  they  were  accompanied  by  a  guard  and 
churchgoers  in  numbers  were  abroad  at  that  hour.  A  guard  was 
always  on  duty  at  the  marine  barracks  on  Eighth  Street  (east), 
near  the  Navy  Yard,  and  any  commotion  in  that  vicinity  would 
quickly  rouse  an  alarm.  There  were  altogether  too  many  guards 
around  the  Executive  Mansion  and  at  the  War  Department  across 
the  lawn. 

After  all,  perhaps  Ford's  Theatre  would  be  the  most  likely 
spot:  so  John  may  have  reasoned.  He  knew  every  inch  of  it  and 
its  surroundings.  Possibly  he  thought  he  might  count  on  aid  there 
—from  Edman  Spangler  and  maybe  others.  Spangler  was  a  Balti- 
morean;  he  had  done  carpenter  work  on  the  Booth  house  at  Belair 
and  in  Baltimore  theaters;  and  when  the  theater  in  Washington 
closed  for  the  summer  he  went  to  Baltimore  on  his  vacations, 
devoted  mainly  to  crab  fishing.  "In  Baltimore,"  stated  John  T. 
Ford,  "he  was  known  to  be  a  member  of  the  American  Order"— by 
which  presumably  was  meant  the  Order  of  American  Knights, 
successor  to  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle.  Himself  a  gymnast 
weighing  160  pounds,  Booth  might  have  reckoned  that  he  and 
the  stalwart  Paine  could  truss  up  Lincoln;  not  knowing  that  Lin- 
coln had  been  New  Salem's  champion  wrestler  and  could  still 
perform  feats  with  axes.5 

Meanwhile,  Lincoln  for  the  time  being  was  not  in  the  city,  his 
return  was  uncertain,  and  nothing  could  be  done.  For  economy's 
sake,  John  began  to  get  rid  of  his  horses.  In  case  he  needed  horses, 
they  were  always  obtainable  in  Washington  at  short  notice.  He 
was  no  longer  the  John  Booth  of  old  days,  as  Mary  Ann  Booth  had 
evidently  seen  during  his  latest  visit  to  New  York.  On  March 
28th  she  wrote  him  thus:6 

6  On  May  13,  1864,  Lincoln  in  a  talk  with  Hay  gave  his  weight  as  180.  "Important 
if  true"  was  the  comment  in  Hay's  diary,  as  if  Hay  did  not  quite  believe  it. 
8  From  the  original  in  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  141 

My  dear  boy 

I  have  just  got  yours.  I  was  very  glad  to  hear  from  you,  &  hope  you 
will  write  often.  I  did  part  with  you  sadly — &  I  still  feel  sad,  very  much 
so.  June  has  just  left  me — he  staid  as  long  as  he  [torn]  could.  I  am  now 
quite  alone.  Rose  has  not  returned  yet.  I  feel  miserable  enough.  I  never 
yet  doubted  your  love  &  devotion  to  me — in  fact  I  always  gave  you 
praise  for  being  the  fondest  of  all  my  boys — but  since  you  leave  me  to 
grief,  I  must  doubt  it.  I  am  no  Roman  mother  I  love  my  dear  ones 
before  Country  or  any  thing  else.  Heaven  guard  you  is  my  Constant 
Prayer 

What  had  been  said?  What  had  she  sensed  that  laid  a  cloud 
upon  her  spirit  and  prompted  her  to  this  sorrowful  letter  with  its 
unaccountable  foretokening?  We  cannot  know  exactly.  When 
Edwin  once,  somewhat  provoked,  had  asked  John  why  he  did  not 
join  the  Confederate  army,  John  had  answered:  "I  promised 
mother  I  would  keep  out  of  the  quarrel,  and  I  am  sorry  that  I  said 
so."  Had  this  old  topic  risen  again,  or  something  like  it  moved 
John  to  extravagant  avowals?  When  he  had  learned  that  Edwin 
voted  for  Lincoln  in  1864,  he  had  "expressed  deep  regret"  and 
declared  his  belief  that  Lincoln  would  become  king  of  America. 
To  Asia  he  had  sung  a  parody  with  the  words 

In  1865,  when  Lincoln  shall  be  king — 

and  when  Asia  had  objected,  "That  will  never  come  to  pass,"  he 
had  jumped  to  his  feet,  shouting,  "No,  by  God's  mercy— never 
that!"  Had  there  been  another  scene  of  the  kind— or  was  it  simply 
that  in  his  general  conduct  Mary  Ann  Booth  had  marked  a  fran- 
tic and  evil  humor? 

Charles  Wyndham,  who  knew  both  men  and  may  have  had  the 
story  from  Clarke  at  first  hand,  told  how,  in  the  early  days  of  the 
war,  Booth  and  John  S.  Clarke,  Booth's  brother-in-law,  had  been 
on  a  railway  journey  together  and  their  chat  happened  to  turn  to 
some  news  bulletin  from  the  front. 

John  Wilkes  made  no  reply,  but  sat  opposite  with  a  frown  on  his 
face  and  drumming  on  the  seat  with  his  fingers.  Finally  Clarke  made 
some  disparaging  remark  about  Jefferson  Davis. 

As  the  words  were  uttered  Booth  sprang  up  and  hurled  himself  upon 
Clarke  in  a  wild  tempest  of  fury,  catching  him  by  the  throat.  Other 
passengers  tried  to  interfere,  but  Booth  held  his  hold,  to  all  appear- 
ances bent  upon  strangling  his  brother-in-law.  He  swung  Clarke  from 


142  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

side  to  side  with  maniac  strength  while  his  grip  tightened.  His  face  was 
drawn  and  twisted  with  rage. 

Slowly  his  anger  left  him  and  his  hold  relaxed,  none  too  soon  for 
Clarke.  Clarke  hardly  knew  what  had  happened  and  looked  at  his 
assailant  in  amazement,  gasping  for  breath.  Booth  stood  over  him  with 
a  dramatic  gesture. 

"Never,  if  you  value  your  life,"  he  said,  tensely,  "never  speak  in  that 
way  to  me  again  of  a  man  and  a  cause  I  hold  sacred."  7 

Clarke,  it  seems,  viewed  the  matter  as  the  result  of  a  temporary 
derangement.  "It  was  known,"  Wyndham  said,  "only  to  a  few 
friends,  who  recalled  it  with  painful  interest  a  few  years  later." 
This  sinister  prepossession,  dormant  for  a  time,  had  been  awaken- 
ing to  new  life  during  the  winter  of  1864-1865.  It  was  not  sur- 
prising that  Mary  Ann  Booth  divined  something  wrong.  John 
Deery  did. 

John  Deery  and  Michael  Geary  then  had  what  was  probably 
the  finest  billiard  parlor  in  Washington.  It  was  on  E  Street  be- 
tween Twelfth  and  Thirteenth,  on  the  floor  above  the  entrance 
to  the  National  (Grover's)  Theatre,  and  had  eleven  tables  and 
a  fully  stocked  bar.  Both  of  the  proprietors  were  well-known 
tournament  players  in  their  day,  Deery  holding  the  American 
championship.  Booth  had  been  used  to  dropping  in  there— not  to 
play,  for  he  never  lifted  a  cue,  but  to  watch  Deery  at  practice  or 
shooting  a  match  game,  or  to  sample  the  establishment's  brandy. 
Deery,  about  Booth's  age,  had  come  to  know  him  as  one  who 
never  boasted  of  his  career,  had  none  of  the  "staginess"  then  fre- 
quent in  his  profession,  kept  his  own  counsel,  and  was  most  in- 
gratiating in  manner.  It  now  appeared  to  Deery,  in  these  earliest 
days  of  spring,  that  Booth  was  laboring  under  a  great  stress.  He 
was  drinking  much  more  freely  and  at  times  "seemed  a  bit  crazed," 
yet  he  gave  no  inkling  of  the  nature  of  the  deep  turmoil  within 
him.8 

He  was  observed,  too,  at  the  other  end  of  the  avenue.  One  mor- 
ning in  the  Senate  chamber  the  chaplain,  the  Rev.  Thomas  Bow- 
man (later  a  bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church),  was 
about  to  begin  the  opening  prayer  when  he  became  aware  of  a 
man  entering  the  gallery— a  man  who  was  a  stranger  to  him  and 

7  New  York  Herald,  June  27,  1909;  magazine  section,  pt.  i,  p.  2. 

8  Sunday  Telegraph    (New  York),  May  23,  1909. 


CHARITY  AND  HATE  143 

whom,  so  far  as  he  could  tell,  he  had  never  seen  before,  but  whose 
appearance  and  behavior  at  once  struck  him.  At  other  times  he 
noticed  the  same  man  prowling  around  the  Capitol  and  the  Execu- 
tive Mansion,  and  was  so  oddly  impressed  that  he  made  inquiries 
as  to  who  the  person  could  be.  He  was  told  that  it  must  be  Booth 
the  play  actor.  Of  play  actors  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bowman,  true  to  the 
Methodist  discipline  of  those  days,  quite  properly  knew  little; 
but  this  particular  one  had  affected  him  most  unfavorably  and 
awakened  in  him  dim  suspicions.  On  April  10th  he  called  to  in- 
form the  President,  but  Lincoln  smiled,  as  four  years  previously 
he  had  smiled  at  Mrs.  Lander's  story,  and  said  he  didn't  think 
anybody  would  attempt  his  life.9 

John  looked  in  as  usual  at  the  office  of  Ford's  Theatre  for  his 
mail.  The  engagement  of  his  friend  McCullough  had  closed  on 
March  25th,  and  on  the  evening  of  Sunday  the  26th  McCullough 
had  left  Washington.  After  the  winter's  pause,  the  daily  news 
was  of  the  Northern  grip  tightening  upon  beleaguered  Richmond; 
of  the  doubt  whether  Lee's  army  would  escape;  of  Lincoln's  visit 
to  City  Point,  where  he  would  be  near  to  Grant's  advance  upon 
the  defenses  of  Petersburg. 

On  April  1st  the  restive  Booth  quit  Washington  for  another 
week,  and  on  the  subsequent  Friday  he  was  in  New  York  with  his 
friend  Chester  at  the  "House  of  Lords"  tavern  on  Houston  Street, 
where,  to  Chester's  dismay,  he  broke  out  with  sudden,  irrelevant 
thunder  about  how  he  could  have  killed  the  President  on  March 
4th.  Between  the  1st  and  the  7th,  Petersburg  and  Richmond  had 
fallen  and  Jefferson  Davis  with  his  government  had  departed 
southward;  but  to  minds  like  Booth's  there  might  still  be  hope- 
Davis  would  establish  a  remote  capital,  issue  a  call  for  fresh  troops, 
and  fight  on. 

John  arrived  back  in  Washington  on  the  8th  and  took  room  228 
at  the  National.  Lincoln,  enheartened,  was  already  on  his  way 
home  from  City  Point  to  work  out  his  program  of  reconcilement 
and  mercy.  In  John's  mail  at  Ford's  was  this  letter: 
Dear  Friend  John:  Baltimore,  April  2*,  '65. 

I  have  been  so  devilishly  unfortunate  as  to  be  drafted  the  other  day, 
and  very  scarce  of  funds  just  at  present,   (having  been  put  to  consider- 

B  New  York  Tribune,  Nov.  23,  1903. 


144  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

able  expense  by  the  death  of  a  brother-in-law  in  Washington  and  the 
consequent  necessities  of  his  widow  and  children.)  I  avail  myself  of  old 
intimacy  to  ask  if  you  will  be  willing  to  play  "Richard"  for  my  benefit 
at  Front  Street  Theatre  on  Saturday  afternoon  next,  provided  I  can  get 
the  Theatre.  I  spoke  to  Kunkel  last  night,  and  he  will  give  me  an  an- 
swer to-morrow.  Necessity,  only,  John,  induces  me  to  make  this  request. 
Mary  wishes  to  be  particularly  remembered.  I  trust  you  will  favor  me 
with  an  early  reply,  and  oblige  yours,  as  ever,  in  friendship, 

J.  H.  Young, 

Sun  Office.10 

Friends  had  always  felt  they  could  count  on  John  Booth,  and  the 
necessitous  Young  must  have  been  sure  that  Booth  as  Richard 
would  be  a  drawing  card.  But  Booth  would  never  again  play  Rich- 
ard, and  he  was  more  desperate  than  Young  could  have  been;  for 
Young  would  not  go  to  the  war— the  war  was  nearly  done. 

When  from  the  upper  window  on  the  evening  of  April  nth  the 
President  addressed  in  words  now  historic  the  loyal  group  that  had 
gathered  to  salute  him,  he  dwelt  upon  what  might  be  learned 
from  the  promising  experiment  in  Louisiana,  regretting  only  that 
the  people  there  had  not  yet  seen  fit  to  accede  to  his  wish  that  the 
franchise  be  granted  to  Negroes  on  the  basis  of  intelligence  and 
military  service. 

There  is  a  story,  one  bearing  the  earmarks  of  trustworthiness, 
that  John  Booth  and  Davy  Herold  were  in  the  crowd  that  night. 
Davy  cared  nothing  about  political  ideas.  (One  who  had  known 
him  from  his  birth  said:  "I  have  never  heard  him  enter  into  any 
argument  on  any  subject  in  the  world  .  .  .  ;  all  his  conversation 
was  light  and  trifling.")  He  did  not  seek  to  analyze  meaning  or 
purpose  when  Booth  turned  to  him  in  a  rage  and  muttered: 

"That  means  nigger  citizenship.  Now,  by  God,  I'll  put  him 
through!"  n 

10  From  the  original  in  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 
"Frederick  Stone,  counsel  for  Herold  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial,  is  authority  for  this. 


Seven 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL 


ALONG  with  tidings  of  imminent  peace,  spring  was  coming  to 
Washington  City.  Judas  trees  and  dogwoods  were  in  bloom  and  a 
reassuring  mildness  filled  the  air.  A  wood  fire  might  still  be  burn- 
ing in  Lincoln's  office  fireplace,  where  old-fashioned  brass  andirons 
and  fender  were  linked  with  a  white  marble  Victorian  mantel. 
Yet  gardeners  were  at  work  outside,  and  before  many  days  the 
sojourners  in  hotel  lobbies  would  be  moving  to  chairs  on  the  side- 
walk, townspeople  would  be  sitting  on  their  doorsteps  to  take  the 
evening  breeze,  and  merrymakers  would  be  going  for  an  outing 
to  the  Great  Falls. 

On  April  10th  the  polished  comedienne  Laura  Keene,  at  one 
time  New  York's  favorite  actress,  was  opening  the  second  week  of 
an  engagement  at  Ford's.  With  her,  supplementing  Ford's  own 
company,  were  two  capable  and  seasoned  actors,  John  Dyott  and 
Harry  Hawk.  She  appeared  on  Monday  as  Miss  Hardcastle  in  "She 
Stoops  to  Conquer,"  on  Tuesday  as  Lady  Teazle  in  "The  School 
for  Scandal,"  on  Wednesday  as  Martha  Savage  in  "The  Workmen 
of  Washington"  (adapted  by  Miss  Keene  from  the  French,  given 
in  New  York  as  "The  Workingmen  of  New  York,  or,  The  Curse 
of  Drink"  and  advertised  as  "A  great  moral  sensational  drama"). 
The  bill  for  the  13th  was  "The  Story  of  Peggy,  the  Actress,"  with 
Miss  Keene  as  Peg  Woffington. 

That  morning  E.  A.  Emerson,  member  of  the  Ford  company, 
was  standing,  he  said,  in  front  of  the  theater  when  John  Booth 
walked  up.  Emerson  had  acted  with  Booth,  was  well  acquainted 
with  him,  and  said  of  him,  "He  was  a  kind-hearted,  genial  person, 
and  no  cleverer  gentleman  ever  lived."  John  now  was  evidently  in 

145 


146  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

a  bad  temper.  He  grabbed  a  cane  from  Emerson's  hand  and  said: 

"Ned,  did  you  hear  what  that  old  scoundrel  did  the  other  day?" 

Emerson  asked  him  whom  he  was  talking  about,  and  John  flung 
back: 

"Why,  that  old  scoundrel,  Lincoln.  He  went  into  Jeff  Davis' 
house  in  Richmond,  sat  down  and  threw  his  long  legs  over  the  arm 
of  a  chair  and  squirted  tobacco  juice  all  over  the  place.  Somebody 
ought  to  kill  him."   (Lincoln  did  not  use  tobacco  in  any  form.) 

"For  God's  sake,  John,"  Emerson  interposed,  "stop  where  you 
are!  I'm  going  to  quit  you." 

At  that,  John  bore  down  with  such  force  on  the  cane,  which  he 
had  been  holding  across  his  shoulders  by  its  ends,  that  it  snapped 
in  four  pieces.  "I  still  have  that  cane,"  Emerson,  then  in  business 
in  Washington,  said  in  1926.1 

During  the  afternoon,  Booth  looked  in  at  the  office  of  Grover's 
(National)  Theatre,  where  Acting  Manager  C.  D.  Hess  and  the 
prompter  were  in  the  thick  of  reading  a  manuscript.  Although  he 
must  have  seen  that  they  were  busy,  he  entered  and  took  a  seat. 
Hess  thought  this  unusual  for  John,  who  ordinarily  was  the  pink 
of  courtesy  and  would  not  do  such  a  thing  unless  invited.  This 
time,  however,  John  not  only  sat  down  but  insisted  on  talking. 
His  manner  seemed  "rather  peculiar"  to  Hess,  who  finally  put  the 
manuscript  away.  Booth  first  spoke  of  the  illumination  of  the  city 
and  inquired  what  the  theater  would  do  in  that  sort,  to  which  the 
manager  answered  he  would  make  some  display  that  night  but 
more  on  the  night  following— April  14th  marking  the  anniversary 
of  Sumter's  fall. 

"Are  you  going  to  invite  the  President?"  Booth  asked. 

"Yes,"  replied  Hess— "and  that  reminds  me  I  must  send  that  in- 
vitation." For  several  days  he  had  been  intending  to  address  a  note 
to  Mrs.  Lincoln. 

Stanton  issued  that  day  an  order  proclaiming  the  end  of  draft- 
ing and  recruiting  in  loyal  states,  and  further  announcing  that  it 
was  the  purpose  of  the  War  Department  to  "remove  all  military 
restrictions  upon  trade  and  commerce  so  far  as  may  be  consistent 
with  the  public  safety."  At  three  in  the  afternoon  Grant  arrived  in 

1  New  York  Times,  Feb.  14,  1926;  pt.  2,  pp.  1,  3. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  147 

Washington,  with  Mrs.  Grant  and  his  staff,  by  dispatch  boat  from 
City  Point,  and  the  statement  to  the  press  was  that  he  would  go  to 
Philadelphia  with  Mrs.  Grant  "probably  to-morrow."  2  He  put  up 
at  Willard's  and  in  the  evening  visited  the  War  Department  in 
company  with  Stanton  to  view  the  doings.  "The  crowd  espied 
him,"  the  Intelligencer  said,  "and  cheered  him  vociferously." 

The  drab  building  for  once  was  gay.  Flags  bedecked  it  from 
top  to  bottom;  at  upper  windows  reflectors  extended  the  beams  of 
calcium  torches;  in  the  center  of  a  blaze  of  varicolored  lights  was 
the  flaming  word  GRANT.3  On  the  portico,  facing  across  the  lawn 
toward  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  two  bands  played  alternately,  and 
an  exhibition  of  fireworks  capped  what  was  described  as  "one  of 
the  most  dazzling  scenes  of  beauty  ever  witnessed  here." 

Bonfires  gleamed  in  the  streets.  In  private  residences  the  small- 
paned  windows  were  filled  with  lighted  candles,  which  added  to 
secular  rejoicing  a  touch  of  religious  festival.  The  day  was,  in  fact, 
that  known  in  England  as  Maundy  Thursday;  the  morrow  would 
be  Good  Friday,  though  Russell,  the  London  Times'  correspond- 
ent, had  noted  that  observance  was  by  no  means  so  thoroughgoing 
in  Washington  as  at  home. 

Early  that  evening  Booth  came  into  the  billiard  parlor  on  E 
Street.  With  him  he  brought  Davy  Herold,  whom  he  introduced  to 
John  Deery  and  who  seemed  to  Deery  an  unintelligent  sprig  with 
the  manner  of  a  valet.  "I  was  rather  surprised,"  Deery  owned,  "at 
his  being  in  Booth's  company."  Deery  had  no  idea  of  the  set  of  odd 
numbers  that  Booth  had  been  trying  to  organize.  About  seven 
o'clock  Booth,  drawing  out  some  money,  asked  Deery  to  let  one 
of  the  table  boys  go  downstairs  to  the  box-office  of  Grover's 
Theatre  and  get  a  box  for  Friday  night.  "Aladdin"  would  be 
given,  with  Wallack  and  Davenport. 

"Why  do  you  want  to  pay  for  that  box?"  Deery  inquired.  "You 
can  have  it  by  going  to  Len  Grover." 

"I  don't  care  to  accept  any  favors  from  the  house,"  Booth  replied 
with  finality. 

One  of  the  boys  went  down  and  presently  came  back  with  an 

2  "Personal  Memoirs,"  vol.  ii,  p.  507.  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  Apr.  14;  p.  4. 

3  Intelligencer,  Apr.  14;  p.  2. 


148  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

order  for  the  box  specified.  Booth  and  Herold  left  soon  afterward. 
On  recent  evenings,  Deery  figured,  Booth  had  been  drinking  as 
much  as  a  quart  of  brandy  in  two  hours  in  Deery's  place;  but  that 
night  he  did  not  linger.  Where  he  went  is  not  clear.  Washington 
en  fete  was  late  in  getting  to  bed,  and  many  persons  were  up  all 
night.  On  Friday  morning,  as  he  was  going  off  duty,  Walter  Bur- 
ton, clerk  at  the  National,  met  Davy  Herold  in  the  corridor. 

"Going  to  see  Booth?"  the  clerk  asked,  and  Davy  said  he  was. 

"Well,"  said  Burton,  "I  don't  believe  he's  in;  he  didn't  come 
to  the  desk  for  his  key." 

However,  the  clerk  found  a  maid  and  told  her  to  open  the  door 
of  room  228  with  her  pass  key.  The  bed  had  not  been  touched.4 

Good  Friday  morning  was  young  when  Booth  penned  this  letter 
to  Mrs.  M.  A.  Booth,  28  East  Nineteenth  Street,  New  York: 

April  14 — 2  a.  m. 
Dearest  Mother — I  know  you  expect  a  letter  from  me,  and  am  sure 
you  will  hardly  forgive  me.  But  indeed  I  have  had  nothing  to  write 
about.  Everything  is  dull;  that  is,  has  been  until  last  night.  Everything 
was  bright  and  splendid.  More  so  in  my  eyes  if  it  had  been  a  display  in 
a  nobler  cause.  But  so  goes  the  world.  Might  makes  right.  I  only  drop 
you  these  few  lines  to  let  you  know  I  am  well,  and  to  say  I  have  not 
heard  from  you.  Excuse  brevity;  am  in  haste.  Had  one  from  Rose.  With 
best  love  to  you  all,  I  am  your  affectionate  son  ever, 

John.5 

It  was  rambling,  incongruous;  the  kind  of  perfunctory  thing  he 
might  have  written  from  the  academy  at  Catonsville  on  a  bygone 
Sunday  afternoon— all  save  that  touch  of  the  fury  which  was  driv- 
ing him  on. 

New  York's  Tribune  declared  expansively  in  its  issue  of  the 
14th: 

The  path  of  Peace  opens  pleasantly  before  us.  There  may  be  thorns 
in  the  way  as  we  advance,  obstacles  to  be  removed,  pitfalls  and  snares  to 
be  avoided,  but  we  look  back  to  the  dread  road  we  have  traveled  for 
four  long  and  weary  and  painful  years,  and  the  road  before  us  smiles 
only  with  Summer  sunshine.  It  is  natural  for  man  to  indulge  in  hope, 
and  hope  is  not  always  illusive. 

*  Sunday  Telegraph  (New  York),  May  23,  1909.  A.  C.  Clark,  "Abraham  Lincoln  in 
the  National  Capital,"  p.  95.  Sunday  Star  (Washington),  Jan.  24,  1909. 

8  As  printed  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  May  1,  1865;  p.  4.  (Also  in  the  Herald, 
Apr.  30;  p.  1,  and  the  World,  May  1;  p.  8.) 


From  a  photograph  in  the  McLcllan  Collection,  Brozim   University 


THE  THREE  BOOTHS  IN  "JULIUS  CESAR" 

John    (left),    Edwin    (center),   and   Junius    (right)   as    they   appeared   at   the 
"Booth  Benefit  for  the  Shakespeare  Statue  Fund,"  November  25th,  1864 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  149 

"The  fourteenth  day  of  April,"  wrote  Stimmel  of  the  Union  Light 
Guard,  "was  warm,  calm  and  beautiful,  an  ideal  spring  day.  All 
Nature  seemed  to  bask  in  the  warm  sunlight  of  assured  peace." 

About  nine  o'clock  John  Booth,  with  three  companions,  en- 
tered the  barber  shop  of  Booker  and  Stewart  on  E  Street,  where 
Charles  Wood  "trimmed  his  hair  round  and  dressed  it."  When 
John  was  a  lad  in  Baltimore,  Wood  had  given  him  haircuts.  One 
of  Booth's  friends  now  asked  Wood  whether  he  had  noticed  a  scar 
on  Booth's  neck.  "Yes,"  Wood  answered. 

"They  say  that  was  a  boil,"  the  other  continued  jokingly,  "but 
it  wasn't  a  boil— it  was  a  pistol  shot." 

Wood,  savoring  the  jest,  returned,  "He  must  have  got  a  little 
too  far  to  the  front  that  time." 

"He  liked  to  have  lost  his  head,"  was  the  colloquial  rejoinder. 

More  than  two  years  afterward,  Wood  "thought"  he  recognized 
in  John  Surratt  the  droll  fellow  of  that  April  morning,  whom  he 
had  never  before  seen.  The  facts  seem,  however,  to  be  that  Sur- 
ratt came  back  from  Richmond  provided  with  gold;  was  in  Wash- 
ington on  April  3rd,  when  he  exchanged  $40  in  gold  for  $60  in 
greenbacks;  and  left  for  Montreal  on  the  morning  of  the  4th.  Evi- 
dence given  by  four  persons  located  him  in  Elmira,  New  York,  on 
the  14th.6 

During  the  forenoon  of  April  14th  Booth  was  seen  at  Grover's 
Theatre  by  Helen  P.  Moss,  sister-in-law  of  C.  D.  Hess,  the  acting 
manager.  It  has  been  surmised  that  John  at  this  time  learned  that 
the  Lincolns  would  be  unable  to  attend  the  evening's  performance 
of  "Aladdin."  Mrs.  Mary  J.  Anderson,  a  Negro  woman  living  on 
the  public  alley  at  the  rear  of  Ford's,  testified  to  having  seen  Booth 
in  the  course  of  the  morning  "down  by  the  stable."  7 

About  10:30  a  messenger  from  the  Executive  Mansion  arrived 

8  Testimony  of  Anna  E.  Surratt  and  John  T.  Holahan  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial;  of 
C.  B.  Stewart,  John  Cass,  F.  H.  Atkinson,  and  Joseph  Carroll  at  the  Surratt  Trial 
(vol.  i,  pp.  723-728,  vol.  ii,  pp.  729-738).  Surratt  in  a  lecture  at  Rockville,  Maryland 
(1870)  said  he  carried  dispatches  from  Benjamin,  Confederate  Secretary  of  State.  In 
the  interview  in  the  Washington  Post  (Apr.  3,  1898)  he  was  quoted  as  stating  that 
he  had  instructions  to  report  on  the  plans  of  the  barracks  at  Elmira,  and  on  the 
number  of  Confederate  prisoners  housed  there.  Even  Louis  Weichmann  owned  that 
Surratt  had  gone  to  Montreal. 

7  Century  Magazine,  Apr.  1909;  pp.  950-953.  Mrs.  Anderson  at  the  Conspiracy 
Trial,  May  16,  1865. 


150  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

at  Ford's  to  obtain  the  "state  box"  for  that  night.  In  this  theater 
the  upper  two  boxes  on  the  right  of  the  auditorium  (the  left  of 
the  stage)  were  ordinarily  divided  by  a  removable  partition  that 
could  be  taken  down  when  Lincoln  was  to  be  present,  thus  making 
one  larger  box.  Reading  notices  were  forthwith  sent  to  the  Repub- 
lican and  the  Star,  afternoon  papers  that  would  be  on  the  streets 
about  two  o'clock.  Scattered  through  the  advertisements,  brief 
items  apprised  the  public  that  lieut.  general  grant  (the  featured 
name)  and  the  President  "and  lady"  would  attend  the  benefit  and 
farewell  of  Miss  Laura  Keene.  To  signalize  the  occasion  a  new 
patriotic  song,  "Honor  to  Our  Soldiers"  (music  by  William 
Withers,  leader  of  the  orchestra;  words  by  H.  B.  Phillips,  one  of 
the  Ford  "stock"),  was  to  be  sung  by  the  Entire  Company. 

The  bill  was  to  be  Tom  Taylor's  "Our  American  Cousin."  This 
piece,  having  been  first  produced  by  Miss  Keene  in  New  York  in 
1858,  was  no  longer  a  novelty.  Others  had  appeared  in  it  in  Wash- 
ington—Jefferson in  1861,  Kate  Denin  and  Dan  Setchell  in  1862, 
John  S.  Clarke  in  1864,  John  T.  Raymond  (later  famed  as  Colonel 
Sellers)  in  the  same  year.8  During  her  engagement  at  the  Washing- 
ton Theatre  from  February  1st  to  27th,  1864,  Miss  Keene  herself 
had  presented  it  four  times,  and  it  has  been  said  that  Lincoln 
attended  one  of  these  performances.9  It  was  advertised  that  "she 
alone  possesses  the  original  manuscript,  all  other  versions  having 
been  surreptitiously  obtained  and  having  but  a  faint  resemblance 
to  the  original."  There  was  then  no  copyright  protection  worthy 
of  the  name  and  piracy  was  rampant,  but  Miss  Keene's  personal 
following,  regarding  her  as  the  most  finished  and  refined  of  Eng- 
lish-speaking actresses,  still  demanded  that  she  keep  this  authentic 
version  in  her  repertory.  Washington  City  was  used  to  seeing  Lin- 
coln at  the  theater— he  had  been  at  Ford's  some  half-dozen  times 
that  season— but  Grant  was  in  effect  a  stranger  and  the  people  were 
eager  for  a  glimpse  of  him.  Altogether,  the  theater  management 
must  have  counted  on  a  brilliant  and  profitable  night. 

8  In  February  1865  F.  S.  Chanfrau  had  appeared  at  Grover's  in  Charles  Gaylor's 
"Our  American  Cousin  at  Home,"  constructed  to  take  advantage  of  the  popularity  of 
Taylor's  play. 

0  Clark,  "Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  National  Capital,"  p.  95.  Clark  says  on  Feb.  9, 
but  "The  Sea  of  Ice"  was  given  on  that  date.  "Our  American  Cousin"  was  presented 
on  the  5th,  6th,  15th,  and  27th. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL 


*5* 


FORD'S   THEATER,    IN    WASHINGTON. 

*K  i^^rsr* At  the  right' Tenth  street  Ieads  toward  e 


152  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

About  high  noon,  John  T.  Ford's  brother,  H.  Clay  Ford,  treas- 
urer and  acting  manager,  was  standing  in  the  theater's  main  en- 
trance. There  were  five  doorways  opening  from  the  street.  That  on 
the  farthest  end  toward  E  Street  admitted  to  the  stairway  leading 
to  the  family  circle;  next  toward  the  north  and  F  Street  was  the 
main  entrance;  and  between  these  two  was  the  box  office,  with  a 
ticket  window  on  one  side  for  the  gallery,  on  the  other  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  house,  and  on  the  east  a  small  window  permitting 
a  view  of  auditorium  and  stage.  At  this  time  of  year  the  main  en- 
trance gave  the  sole  access  to  the  lobby,  the  other  three  doorways 
being  used  as  exits  only;  but  in  warmer  weather  all  doors  except 
the  one  at  the  north  end  were  left  open. 

As  Harry  Ford  looked  up  Tenth  Street,  he  saw  John  Booth  com- 
ing leisurely  down  the  little  slope  from  F.  John  paused  on  the  side- 
walk in  front  of  the  gallery  entrance  and  began  to  talk  with  some 
of  the  theater's  people  collected  there.  One  of  them— Raybold,  the 
upholsterer— went  to  the  office  and  brought  out  a  letter  for  him, 
and  he  read  it  as  he  sat  in  the  main  doorway,  occasionally  glancing 
up  and  laughing  as  he  read.  Years  later  Harry  Ford  admitted  that 
he  then  told  Booth  that  the  President  and  General  Grant  would 
be  at  the  theater;  and,  to  tease  John,  he  added  that  Davis  and  Lee 
would  also  be  there  in  another  box— and  in  irons.  (Somehow,  word 
had  got  about  on  the  previous  day  that  Lee  was  actually  in  the 
city.10)  After  half  an  hour  or  so  Booth  sauntered  on.11 

At  the  corner  of  Tenth  and  E  he  was  seen  by  another  Ford 
brother— James  R.,  business  manager  of  the  theater;  and  he  walked 
the  few  squares  to  the  livery  stable  of  James  W.  Pumphrey  on  C 
Street,  in  the  rear  of  the  National  Hotel.  There  he  engaged  a 
saddle  horse,  a  bay  mare,  to  be  ready  at  about  four  o'clock.  He  ap- 
pears then  to  have  walked  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  to  Willard's 
(at  Fourteenth).  When  Mrs.  Grant  went  in  to  luncheon  in  the 
hotel's  dining  room,  she  was  followed  by  "a  man  with  a  wild  look," 
who  sat  down  nearly  opposite  to  her  at  one  of  the  long  tables, 
stared  at  her  continually,  and  seemed  to  be  listening  to  what  she 
said.  The  General  came  back  to  the  hotel  somewhat  after  two 

10  Intelligencer,  Apr.  14;  p.  2. 

11  Testimony  of  H.  C.  Ford  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial,  as  printed  in  the  Washington 
Weekly  Chronicle,  June  10,  1865;  p.  4.  H.  C.  Ford's  "Reminiscences,"  Evening  Post 
(New  York),  July  8,  1884.  J.  T.  Ford  MSS. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  153 

o'clock  and  Mrs.  Grant  told  him  of  her  experience.  "Oh,  I  suppose 
he  did  so  merely  from  curiosity,"  was  the  General's  answer.12 

Rumor  was  that  Booth  met  Thomas  B.  Florence,  editor  of  the 
Constitutional  Union,  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  at  some  time  that 
day  and  in  the  course  of  talk  said  that  he  might  be  going  to 
Canada  soon,  as  several  Canadian  managers  were  offering  engage- 
ments. If  such  meeting  took  place,  it  must  have  been  as  John  was 
going  to  Willard's  or  between  that  time  and  about  half-past  two, 
when  he  made  a  brief  call  at  Mrs.  Surratt's.13 

Mrs.  Surratt  and  her  boarder  Weichmann,  who  was  driving  for 
her,  were  just  ready  to  leave  in  a  hired  rig  for  the  two  hours'  jour- 
ney to  Surrattsville,  where  Mrs.  Surratt  had  some  business.  Booth 
therefore  remained  only  a  few  minutes.  Not  far  from  three  o'clock 
Mrs.  Anderson,  the  Negro  woman  who  had  seen  him  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  a  Mrs.  Mary  Ann  Turner,  who  lived  next  to  Mrs.  Ander- 
son on  the  alley,  both  noticed  John  chatting  with  a  lady  in  the 
doorway  of  the  theater's  rear  entrance.  Rehearsal  for  that  day  had 
been  shifted  from  a  morning  hour  to  about  two  in  the  afternoon, 
and  the  lady  must  have  been  one  of  the  cast.  Mrs.  Anderson  said, 
"I  stood  in  my  gate  and  looked  right  wishful  at  him"— thus  joining 
the  well-nigh  universal  feminine  tribute.14 

After  "a  considerable  time,"  John  went  into  the  theater.  Mem- 
bers of  its  staff  were  busily  preparing  for  the  evening.  Harry  Ford 
and  Ray  bold  the  upholsterer  were  ornamenting  the  "state  box" 
with  flags.  Edman  Spangler,  who  had  taken  down  the  movable 
partition,  was  now  on  the  stage,  tinkering  with  a  pair  of  "flats"— 
large  pieces  of  scenery  set  in  grooves  and  shoved  into  place  by 
scene  shifters.  Young  William  Ferguson  was  making  copies  of 
instructions  for  the  stage  hands  as  to  changes  of  scene,  lighting 
(controlled  from  a  "gas-box"  near  the  prompter's  desk),  and 
scenic  effects  generally.  Maddox,  the  property  man,  was  there  too; 
and  on  seeing  John  he  moved  adjournment  for  a  drink. 

"No,  thanks,"  John  is  reported  to  have  said.  "I've  a  touch  of 
pleurisy,  and  I  don't  think  I'll  drink  anything." 

"Horace  Porter,  "Campaigning  with  Grant,"  Century  Magazine,  Oct.  1897;  p.  892. 

13  The  Sun  (New  York),  Apr.  19,  1865;  p.  1.  (Special  correspondence  from  Wash- 
ington, dated  Apr.  17.) 

"Testimony  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  W.  J.  Ferguson,  "Lincoln's  Death,"  Saturday 
Evening  Post,  Feb.  12,  1929;  p.  42. 


154  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

He  accompanied  Ferguson  and  Maddox,  however,  as  they  went 
out  of  the  stage  entrance,  through  the  passage  to  Tenth  Street, 
and  into  the  "Star,"  Peter  Taltavull's  adjoining  saloon.  The  stage 
entrance  (not  to  be  confused  with  the  back  door)  was  on  the  O.  P. 
(opposite  prompter)  side— that  is,  the  southern.  You  went  through 
a  glass  door,  down  a  few  steps  to  an  alleyway,  and  then  along  a 
corridor  to  the  exit.  The  corridor  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  within 
the  adjacent  building,  and  resembled  a  hallway. 

In  the  saloon,  Booth  reconsidered  and  took  a  glass  of  ale;  and 
when  the  three  were  again  outside,  he  said  to  Maddox,  "Have  you 
got  the  key?"  Ferguson,  who  mentions  this,  thought  that  Maddox 
either  shook  his  head  or  answered,  "No."  15  It  sounded  mysterious 
but  undoubtedly  referred  to  the  key  of  the  stable  in  the  alley. 
"Peanuts"  Burroughs  had  always  hung  this  key  on  a  nail  behind 
the  theater's  back  door.  Maddox  had  arranged  with  Mrs.  Davis, 
the  owner,  for  the  rental  of  the  stable  and  had  paid  her  the  rent 
money  as  Booth  gave  it  to  him.  Booth's  driving  horse  and  buggy 
having  recently  been  sold  (with  the  harness)  for  $260,  the  stable 
now  was  vacant;  but  John  intended  to  use  it  shortly  and  wished  to 
know  where  the  key  was. 

From  Taltavull's  John  walked  to  James  Pumphrey's  livery 
stable  to  get  the  bay  mare  he  had  engaged.  He  had  been  used  to 
riding  a  sorrel  horse  of  Pumphrey's  but  this  happened  to  have 
been  taken,  so  he  was  going  to  try  out  the  mare— a  small,  trim 
animal  with  black  mane  and  tail.  When  he  asked  for  a  tie-rein, 
Pumphrey  told  him  not  to  hitch  her,  as  she  had  a  trick  of  break- 
ing her  headstall.  John  said  he  would  have  to  tie  her  if  he  stopped 
to  get  a  drink,  but  Pumphrey  responded,  "Oh,  you  can  find  plenty 
of  bootblacks  about  the  streets  to  hold  your  horse." 

"I'm  going  to  Grover's  Theatre,"  Booth  said,  "to  write  a  letter. 
There's  no  necessity  of  tying  her  there,  for  there  is  a  stable  in  the 
back  part  of  the  alley.  I'll  put  her  there."  He  rode  out,  and  Pum- 
phrey never  laid  eyes  on  either  him  or  the  mare  again.16 

It  does  not  appear  that  he  went  to  Grover's.  James  P.  Ferguson, 
who  kept  a  saloon  on  the  "upper"  or  northern  side  of  Ford's,  saw 
him  and  Maddox  about  this  time  in  front  of  the  theater.  They 

15  "Lincoln's  Death,"  ib.,  p.  44. 

16  Poore,  vol.  i,  pp.  174-175. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  155 

were  standing  beside  Pumphrey's  mare,  and  presently  Booth 
mounted,  saying  (according  to  Ferguson),  "See  what  a  nice  horse 
I  have— now  watch,  she  can  run  just  like  a  cat!"  With  that  he  put 
spurs  to  the  beast  and  went  dashing  toward  Pennsylvania  Avenue. 
He  rode  along  the  avenue  in  the  direction  of  the  Treasury  build- 
ing and  at  the  triangular  inclosure  between  Thirteenth  and  Four- 
teenth he  saw  John  Matthews,  out  for  an  afternoon  promenade. 
Matthews  was  to  have  the  part  of  the  unscrupulous  agent  Richard 
Coyle  in  the  evening's  play. 

Booth  rode  up  to  the  curb  and  greeted  him.  Some  prisoners  had 
just  been  marched  by— Lee's  officers,  Matthews  thought,  but  Lee's 
officers  had,  as  we  know,  been  allowed  by  Grant  to  return  home  on 
parole.17 

"Have  you  seen  the  prisoners?"  Matthews  asked. 

"Yes,  I  have,"  Booth  replied;  and  then,  raising  a  hand  to  his 
forehead,  broke  out  with  "Great  God,  I  have  no  longer  a  country!" 

He  had  with  him  "a  paper  sealed  and  stamped,"  and  this  he  now 
requested  Matthews  to  deliver  next  morning  at  the  office  of  the 
Intelligencer.  Matthews  took  it,  put  it  in  a  coat  pocket,  and,  look- 
ing out  on  the  avenue,  saw  a  coach  passing  rapidly  toward  the 
Capitol,  with  Grant  visible  at  a  window  and  luggage  piled  beside 
the  driver.  Recognizing  the  General,  he  said  to  Booth: 

"Why,  there  goes  Grant.  I  thought  he  was  coming  to  the  theater 
this  evening  with  the  President." 

"Where?"  Booth  cried  sharply.  Matthews  pointed,  and  Booth  set 
out  at  a  gallop  after  the  coach.18 

As  the  vehicle  held  its  course  eastward,  a  horseman  rode  by 
in  the  same  direction  and  peered  at  the  occupants.  "That,"  Mrs. 
Grant  said  to  the  General,  "is  the  same  man  who  sat  at  the  lunch- 
eon table  near  me.  I  don't  like  his  looks."  The  coach  turned  left  on 

"Grant,  "Personal  Memoirs,"  vol.  ii,  p.  492.  On  Apr.  10,  from  headquarters  at 
Winchester,  Va.,  Hancock  had  issued  orders  in  which  it  was  stated:  "All  detachments 
and  stragglers  from  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  will,  upon  complying  with  the 
above  conditions,  be  paroled  and  allowed  to  go  to  their  homes.  Those  who  do  not 
so  surrender  will  be  brought  in  as  prisoners  of  war."  (See  the  Intelligencer,  Apr.  14, 
p.  2.) 

18  House  Report  7,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session  (Committee  on  the  Judiciary), 
p.  782.  Surratt  Trial,  vol.  ii,  p.  821.  Matthews'  letter  in  the  Intelligencer,  July  18, 
1867;  p.  2.  Testimony  of  John  T.  Ford,  House  Report,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session, 
P-  533- 


156  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

First  Street,  making  for  the  B.  and  O.  depot  at  C  Street  and  New 
Jersey  Avenue;  but  before  it  had  reached  the  depot,  the  horseman 
headed  about,  rode  back,  and  gazed  intently  at  those  within.19 

Between  five  and  six,  Booth  came  riding  into  the  alley  back  of 
Ford's.  He  hallooed  for  Spangler,  who  finally  brought  out  a 
halter  rope  and  led  the  horse  into  the  stable.  John  removed  the 
saddle,  locked  the  stable  door  (Maddox,  who  was  also  there,  hav- 
ing presumably  fetched  the  key),  and  went  into  the  theater.  He 
then  invited  Maddox,  "Peanuts,"  and  Spangler  to  have  a  round  of 
drinks  in  Taltavull's  place.20 

It  was  near  five  o'clock  when  William  A.  Browning,  private  sec- 
retary to  Vice-President  Andrew  Johnson  left  the  Vice-President's 
room  in  the  Capitol  and  walked  to  the  Kirkwood  House  (at  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  and  Twelfth  Street),  where  both  Johnson  and  he 
lived.  In  his  box— it  was  67— at  the  hotel  office  he  noticed  a  card, 
and  Clerk  Robert  R.  Jones  handed  it  to  him.  On  the  card  was 
written: 


Dont  wish  to  disturb  you 
Are  you  at  home? 

J  Wilkes  Booth 


Browning  had  met  John  Booth  several  times  when  Booth  was  play- 
ing in  Nashville,  Tennessee.  "It  is  from  Booth,"  he  said  to  Jones. 
"Is  he  playing  here?"  Browning,  as  he  later  stated,  had  at  first 
some  idea  of  going  to  call  on  John.  At  that  time  he  attached  no 
importance  to  the  inoffensive-looking  bit  of  pasteboard  that  was  to 
contribute  so  richly  to  the  Great  American  Myth.21 

The  grateful  spring  day  was  waning  into  night.  At  the  Kirk- 
wood, the  National,  and  other  hotels,  guests  were  beginning  to 
think  of  dinner.  By  five,  Andrew  Johnson  was  at  table.  Some, 
wearied  with  days  of  festivity,  would,  like  him,  remain  indoors 
and  seek  a  good  night's  rest.  Many  would  stroll  out  to  have  a  final 

19  Porter,  "Campaigning  with  Grant,"  Century  Magazine,  Oct.  1897;  P-  892. 

20  Testimony  of  "Peanuts"  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  Spangler's  statement,  "The 
Life  of  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd,"  p.  325. 

21  Browning's  statement  in  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General,  and  his 
testimony  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  157 

view  of  the  dingy  city  radiantly  transformed.  Others  would  be  at 
the  theaters— if  they  could  not  get  a  seat  at  Ford's,  there  would  be 
the  spectacular  "Aladdin"  at  Grover's,  where  also  the  popular  Ef- 
fie  Germon  would  sing  and  original  patriotic  verses  by  Maj.  B.  B. 
French  would  be  recited  by  "a  Lady  of  Washington  City." 

At  the  Executive  Mansion  the  President  was  just  getting  back 
from  a  drive.  He  had  left  at  about  three;  as  he  was  coming  down- 
stairs had  heard  the  voice  of  a  one-armed  soldier:  "I  would  almost 
give  my  other  hand  if  I  could  shake  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln"; 
and  had  said,  "You  shall  do  that  and  it  shall  cost  you  nothing."  He 
and  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  Tad  were  driven  to  the  Navy  Yard  and  went 
on  board  the  Montauk,  then  lying  in  the  Eastern  Branch.  She  was 
one  of  those  new  ironclad  steam  vessels  devised  by  Theodore 
Timby  and  John  Ericsson  and  called  monitors,  odd  craft  with 
slight  freeboard— resembling,  to  the  lay  mind,  cheese  boxes  on 
rafts.  The  Montauk  (with  a  length  of  290  feet,  a  draught  of  about 
fourteen,  and  a  crew  of  about  140  men)  had  been  in  the  engage- 
ment at  Fort  Fisher,  as  had  the  Saugus,  anchored  near;  and  both 
showed  the  marks  of  combat. 

Escorted  by  the  Montauk' 's  officers,  the  President  and  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln made  a  thorough  inspection  of  the  ship.  "Both  seemed  very 
happy,  and  so  expressed  themselves,"  wrote  Dr.  George  B.  Todd, 
the  Montauk' s  surgeon,  "—glad  that  this  war  was  over,  or  so  near 
its  end."  .  .  ,22  In  the  carriage  Lincoln  spoke  of  the  happy  life  that 
might  yet  be  theirs  when,  his  second  term  over,  they  could  get 
away  from  Washington  (which  Mrs.  Lincoln  always  had  cordially 
detested)  and  return  to  Springfield. 

His  had  been  an  active  day.  He  had  risen  at  seven;  done  a  half- 
hour's  work  in  the  office,  including  the  dispatching  of  notes  to 
Grant  and  Seward;  and,  after  breakfasting,  had  passed  the  morn- 
ing until  eleven  in  a  series  of  interviews  and  a  visit  to  the  War 
Department.  At  eleven  the  Cabinet  met,  with  Seward  absent. 
Grant  was  there,  and  Lincoln  told  Grant  and  the  Cabinet  to  look 
for  good  news  from  Sherman.  Last  night,  he  said,  he  had  had  a 
familiar  dream— one  he  had  repeatedly  dreamed  prior  to  some  im- 

32  From  the  copy  of  Todd's  letter  to  his  brother  Henry,  in  the  collection  of  the 
Wisconsin  State  Historical  Society. 


158  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

portant  event,  usually  a  victory.  He  had  dreamed  it  before  Antie- 
tam,  Murfreesboro',  Gettysburg,  Vicksburg.  Grant  in  his  blunt, 
matter-of-fact  style  interposed  that  Murfreesboro'  (Stone  River) 
was  no  victory  and  really  of  no  special  importance;  but  Lincoln, 
not  to  be  sidetracked,  continued  that  in  this  instance  the  dream 
must  pertain  to  Sherman.  The  dream  was,  he  explained,  of  a  vessel, 
singular  and  indescribable  but  always  the  same,  moving  very 
rapidly  toward  a  dark  and  indefinite  shore.23 

(Those  interested  will  find  in  "George  Eliot's  Life,"  by  J.  W. 
Cross,  an  example  of  how  stories  may  in  time  be  altered.  An  entry 
there  given  from  George  Eliot's  journal  tells  of  the  deep  impres- 
sion made  by  Charles  Dickens'  version  of  Lincoln's  dream.  Dic- 
kens, at  a  luncheon,  said  Lincoln  informed  the  Council  that 
"something  remarkable  would  happen  because  he  had  just  dreamt, 
for  the  third  time,  a  dream  which  twice  before  had  preceded  events 
momentous  to  the  nation.  The  dream  was,  that  he  was  in  a  boat 
on  a  great  river,  all  alone,  and  he  ended  with  the  words— 'I  drift— 
I  drift— I  drift.'  Dickens  told  this  very  finely."  Did  Dickens  re- 
ceive the  story  in  that  form?  If  so,  where?  Did  George  Eliot  ac- 
curately record  him?)24 

After  some  minor  business,  discussion  veered  to  the  recon- 
struction of  the  South.  Congress,  Lincoln  observed,  was  fortu- 
nately adjourned,  and  the  radicals  in  it  could  not  hamper  the 
necessary  work  of  reviving  state  governments  in  orderly  fashion. 
As  for  persecuting  rebels— there  must  be  "no  bloody  work."  By  act 
of  Congress,  those  high  in  the  government  or  armed  forces  of  the 
Confederacy  were  liable  for  treason;  but  no  one  need  look  to  him, 
he  said,  to  have  a  part  in  hangings  and  killings.  "Frighten  them 
out  of  the  country,  open  the  gates,  let  down  the  bars,  scare  them 
off— shoo!"  He  brandished  his  arms  as  if  he  were  driving  chickens 
from  a  garden  patch.  Then  he  added  that  he  did  not  sympathize 
with  those  who  wished  to  treat  as  other  than  fellow-citizens  the 
people  of  states  lately  in  rebellion.  "We  must,"  he  said,  "extinguish 
our  resentments  if  we  expect  harmony  and  union."  Such  was  the 
character  of  his  last  reported  words  on  this  vexed  matter. 

23  Carpenter,  "Six  Months  at  the  White  House,"  p.  292.  Gideon  Welles'  Diary,  vol. 
ii,  pp.  281-282. 

"Edinburgh  edition  of  1885,  vol.  iii,  p.  113. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  159 

Grant  lingered  for  a  talk  with  the  President.  Between  his  arrival 
on  Thursday  afternoon  and  the  departure  of  a  messenger  from 
the  Executive  Mansion  on  Friday  morning  to  reserve  the  box,  the 
General  had  at  some  time  accepted  for  Mrs.  Grant  and  himself  "a 
verbal  invitation"  to  accompany  the  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 
to  Ford's  Theatre  on  Friday  evening.  But  he  had  already  become 
somewhat  embarrassed  by  the  heartiness  of  his  acclaim  in  Wash- 
ington. 

In  March  1864,  when  he  had  been  formally  commissioned  lieu- 
tenant general,  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  arranged  a  military  dinner  in  his 
honor,  and  he  had  said  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  remain 
—he  must  leave  for  Tennessee.  "But  we  can't  excuse  you,"  Lin- 
coln said.  "It  would  be  'Hamlet'  with  Hamlet  left  out.  Twelve 
distinguished  officers  have  been  invited  to  meet  you."  "I  appre- 
ciate the  honor  Mrs.  Lincoln  would  do  me,"  Grant  replied,  "but 
time  is  very  precious  just  now— and  really,  Mr.  President,  I  believe 
I've  had  enough  of  the  'show  business!'  "  That  dinner  was  held, 
the  twelve  distinguished  officers  were  on  hand,  but  the  General 
was  elsewhere. 

So  now,  when  the  President  remarked  that  the  people  would  be 
delighted  to  see  Grant  at  the  play,  this  seemed,  to  the  General's 
notion,  no  inducement  whatever.  At  that  point  a  note  from  Mrs. 
Grant  was  brought  in  and,  after  reading  it,  Grant  said  he  must  de- 
cide not  to  remain  in  Washington  Friday  night  and  would  start 
with  Mrs.  Grant  for  Philadelphia.  It  was  after  two  o'clock  when 
he  shook  hands  with  Lincoln  and  bade  him  good-by. 

Endeavors  have  been  made  to  invest  Grant's  action  with  a 
semblance  of  mystery  and  to  convey  unjustifiable  inferences  re- 
garding others.  Here  we  must  consult  the  old  precept  of  cherchez 
la  femme.  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  accompanied  the  President  to  City 
Point  in  March.  She  remained  there  for  a  week,  arrived  back  in 
Washington  on  April  1st,  and  was  a  second  time  at  City  Point  from 
the  6th  to  the  8th.  On  March  26th  and  27th,  during  visits  to  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Army  of  the  James,  Mrs.  Lincoln 
(according  to  Badeau,  Grant's  secretary)  caused  highly  unpleasant 
scenes;  on  the  second  day,  in  the  presence  of  officers,  she  insulted 
both  her  hostess  Mrs.  Grant  and  Mrs.  Grant's  friend  Mrs.  Ord, 
wife  of  Gen.  E.  O.  C.  Ord.  "I  suppose,"  she  raged  at  Mrs.  Grant, 


i6o  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 


y£*~^C*&~      S&td-lS' *4&e»*m 


MRS.    LINCOLN'S    NOTE    TO    GRANT 

(From   Badeau's    "Grant   in    Peace."   It   is   an    interesting   specimen   of 
Mary    Lincoln's    handwriting.) 

"you  think  you'll  get  to  the  White  House  yourself,  don't  you?" 
It  was  not  the  first  time  she  had  been  offensive  to  Mrs.  Grant,  of 
whom  she  once  had  demanded,  "How  dare  you  be  seated  until  I 
invite  you?" 

No  doubt,  too,  the  General's  lady,  facing  the  ordeal  of  a  box 
party  with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  was  understandably  piqued  at  the  fact 
that  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  only  the  day  before  invited  the  General  to 
drive  about  the  city  and  view  the  lights  but  somehow  had  alto- 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  161 

gether  omitted  Mrs.  Grant.  To  Mrs.  Grant,  balanced  thus  between 
pride  and  social  duty,  entered  Mrs.  Stanton— "as  white  and  cold 
and  motionless  as  marble,"  Hay  wrote  of  her,  "whose  rare  smiles 
seemed  to  pain  her."  On  this  day  she  must  have  been  roused.  She 
disclosed  that  the  Secretary  and  herself  had  likewise  been  invited, 
and  wished  to  know  what  Mrs.  Grant  intended  to  do.  "For  unless 
you  accept  the  invitation,"  she  declared,  "I  shall  refuse.  I  will  not 
sit  without  you  in  the  box  with  Mrs.  Lincoln!"  The  First  Lady 
was  not  popular  in  official  society,  and  Mrs.  Stanton  had  told 
Badeau  flatly,  "I  do  not  visit  Mrs.  Lincoln." 

It  seems  that  Mrs.  Grant  then  and  there  determined  not  to  at- 
tend the  play.  She  sent  a  note  to  the  General,  who,  prompt  for  an 
excuse,  made  up  his  mind  not  to  go  without  her.  About  three 
o'clock  Mrs.  Stanton  was  at  the  War  Department,  conferring  with 
the  Secretary,  who  instructed  her  to  send  regrets.  He  had  often 
been  asked  to  the  theater  by  Lincoln,  he  said,  but  had  consistently 
refused  because  he  thought  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  should  not  go. 
David  Bates  asserts  that  Stanton  had  personally  requested  Grant 
not  to  attend— thinking,  perhaps,  that  Lincoln  might  thus  be  dis- 
suaded from  going.  This,  so  far  as  we  may  know  it  now,  is  the 
real  story  of  why  Grant  was  not  in  the  box  that  night.  There  were 
no  mysterious  entanglements  as  sensational  writers  have  hinted; 
but  Grant  (who,  Badeau  says,  "regarded  the  feelings  of  others 
carefully")  quite  naturally  did  not  unfold  to  Lincoln  the  whole 
truth.25 

Grant's  private  car  was  attached  to  the  train  leaving  Washing- 
ton at  4:30  and  arriving  at  Baltimore  at  6:10.  Maj.  H.  B.  Smith, 
Gen.  Lew  Wallace's  chief  of  detectives,  was  introduced  to  the 
General  aboard  the  car,  which  then  was  standing  on  Howard 
Street,  just  north  of  Camden,  waiting  to  be  drawn  up  Howard  and 
along  Pratt  to  the  depot  of  the  Philadelphia,  Wilmington  and  Bal- 
timore. A  train  leaving  Baltimore  at  6:35  was  due  to  arrive  in 
Philadelphia  at  11.26  Beckwith,  Grant's  telegrapher  and  cipher 
operator,  went  along. 

35  Porter,  "Campaigning  with  Grant,"  Century  Magazine,  Oct.  1897;  pp.  891-892. 
Grant,  "Personal  Memoirs,"  vol.  ii,  p.  508.  Carpenter,  "Six  Months  at  the  White 
House,"  pp.  56-57.  Badeau,  "Grant  in  Peace,"  pp.  356-362.  Moorfield  Storey,  "Dick- 
ens, Stanton,  Sumner,  and  Storey,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  Apr.  1930;  p.  464. 

20  Time-tables  in  Intelligencer  and  in  "Appleton's  Guide." 


162  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

The  President  had,  as  usual,  taken  a  scanty  luncheon  and  then 
had  gone  to  his  office,  where  he  signed  the  pardon  of  a  deserter, 
saying,  "Well,  I  think  the  boy  can  do  us  more  good  above  ground 
than  under  ground."  He  also  gave  an  order  for  the  release  of 
George  Vaughn  of  Missouri,  a  Confederate  prisoner  sentenced  to 
death  as  a  spy.  The  drive  to  the  Navy  Yard  followed. 

As  the  returning  carriage  swung  up  the  roadway  to  the  portico, 
two  friends  from  Illinois,  Gen.  Isham  N.  Haynie  and  Governor 
Richard  Oglesby,  were  just  leaving  the  Executive  Mansion.  Lin- 
coln called  them  back  and  they  went  up  to  his  reception  room, 
where  he  read  aloud  to  them  four  chapters  of  Petroleum  V. 
Nasby's  "Letters,"  keeping  on  until  dinner  was  announced  at  six 
o'clock.  Oglesby  and  Haynie  thereupon  bade  him  good  evening. 
At  the  close  of  the  meal,  about  half-past  six,  his  friend  Noah 
Brooks  of  the  Sacramento  Union  happened  in  and  Lincoln  told 
Brooks  he  had  "felt  inclined  to  give  up  the  whole  thing"  after 
Grant  finally  decided  not  to  stay  for  the  box  party,  but  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln had  insisted  that  the  people  ought  not  to  be  disappointed. 

Before  dressing  for  the  theater,  the  President,  attended  by  Of- 
ficer Crook  of  the  special  guard,  walked  over  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment for  a  brief  visit.  A  cluster  of  rough-looking,  drunken  fellows 
was  hanging  around  outside  the  paling,  and  Lincoln,  so  the  guard 
recounted,  said  unexpectedly: 

"Crook,  do  you  know  I  believe  there  are  men  who  want  to  take 
my  life?"  He  paused.  "And  I  have  no  doubt  they  will  do  it,"  he 
ended  in  a  lower  tone. 

He  entered  the  building  and  went  up  to  Stanton's  office.  John 
Potts,  the  War  Department's  chief  clerk,  had  once  purchased,  for 
use  at  the  grate  fires  by  which  the  building  was  heated,  such  an 
inferior  lot  of  cast-iron  pokers  that  Major  Eckert,  chief  of  the 
Department's  telegraph  office,  broke  four  or  five  of  them  by  strik- 
ing them  across  his  left  arm.  Lincoln,  who  was  present,  had  said, 
"Mr.  Potts,  you  will  have  to  buy  a  better  quality  of  iron  in  future 
if  you  expect  your  pokers  to  stand  the  test  of  this  young  man's 
arm."  Now,  during  these  his  last  moments  on  this  second  floor 
where  through  four  trying  years  he  had  spent  so  many  hours,  he 
quizzed  the  Secretary: 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  163 

"Stanton,  do  you  know  that  Eckert  can  break  a  poker  over  his 
arm?" 

On  the  defensive  against  any  of  Lincoln's  jocularity,  Stanton 
parried  bluffly  with  "No.  Why  do  you  ask  such  a  question?" 

"Well,  Stanton,"  Lincoln  proceeded,  "I  have  seen  Eckert  break 
five  pokers,  one  after  the  other,  over  his  arm,  and  I'm  thinking  he 
would  be  the  kind  of  man  to  go  with  me  this  evening.  May  I  take 
him?" 

Stanton,  resolved  not  to  countenance  Lincoln's  theatergoing, 
answered  that  Eckert  could  not  be  spared.  "Well,  I'll  ask  the 
Major  myself,"  said  Lincoln  easily,  "and  he  can  do  your  work  to- 
morrow." 

But  Eckert,  out  of  respect  for  the  Secretary  and  the  Secretary's 
views,  thanked  the  President  and  said  the  work  was  urgent.  So 
Lincoln  and  Crook  walked  back  together,  Lincoln  remarking  that 
he  did  not  now  care  about  going  out  for  the  evening  but  would 
not  disappoint  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the  audience.  Crook  said  that  he 
"almost  begged"  Lincoln  not  to  go,  and  then  asked  to  be  per- 
mitted to  remain  on  duty  and  serve  as  guard  at  the  theater,  but 
Lincoln  responded,  "No,  Crook,  you've  had  a  long,  hard  day's 
work,  and  must  go  home." 

They  reached  the  portico  of  the  Executive  Mansion  and  Lin- 
coln began  climbing  the  steps.  "Good-by,  Crook"— the  guard,  set- 
ting out  for  his  home  on  Rodbird's  hill,  was  positive  of  the  word- 
it  was  "Good-by,  Crook,"  not  the  wonted  "Good-night,"  that  was 
called  from  the  entrance.27 

It  is  strange,  but  Lincoln  had  invited  many  persons  that  day 
and  all,  for  one  reason  or  another,  had  declined.  Governor  Oglesby 
and  General  Haynie  had  been  asked,  but  said  they  must  be  at  Wil- 
lard's  for  a  meeting  of  the  senators  and  representatives  from  Il- 
linois. William  A.  Howard  of  Detroit  (a  representative  from  1855 
to  1861)  had  been  asked  but  regretted  that  he  had  made  all  ar- 
rangements to  leave  Washington  that  day.  William  H.  Wallace, 

"David  Bates,  whose  book  was  not  published  until  1907,  stated  that  Eckert  was 
invited  during  Lincoln's  morning  visit  to  the  Department.  This  plainly  is  an  error; 
and  Lincoln  did  not  pay  an  afternoon  visit,  as  Bates  made  him  do  in  an  article  in 
the  Independent  (Apr.  4,  1895).  Stanton,  too,  was  mistaken  in  testifying  in  1867  that 
Lincoln's  final  visit  was  on.Apr.  12  or  13.  His  last  dispatch  was  written  on  Apr.  12. 


164  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

governor  of  Idaho  Territory,  and  Mrs.  Wallace  had  been  asked 
but  pleaded  weariness  after  a  long  trip.  Robert  Lincoln,  a  captain 
on  Grant's  staff  and  just  back  from  the  front,  was  asked  but  said 
he  preferred  to  "turn  in  early."  At  the  very  last,  Miss  Clara  Harris 
and  her  fiance,  Maj.  Henry  R.  Rathbone,  were  invited,  and  they 
accepted. 

Just  as  Lincoln  was  ready,  about  seven-thirty,  to  start  for  Ford's, 
two  visitors  detained  him— Schuyler  Colfax,  Speaker  of  the  House 
(who  had  called  in  the  morning)  and  George  Ashmun  of  Massa- 
chusetts, who  had  been  chairman  of  the  Republican  convention 
of  i860  that  named  Lincoln  as  its  candidate.  During  the  chat  with 
them,  Ashmun  said  that  Lincoln's  friends  had  been  greatly  con- 
cerned for  his  safety  on  the  occasion  of  his  trip  to  Richmond. 

"I  would  have  been  alarmed  myself,"  Lincoln  replied,  "if  any 
other  person  had  been  President  and  gone  there,  but  I  did  not 
find  any  danger  whatever." 

Ashmun  wished,  for  himself  and  a  client  of  his,  an  interview 
with  Lincoln  on  a  matter  of  business,  so  the  President  wrote  on  a 
card: 


Allow  Mr  Ashmun 

&  friend  to  come  in 

at  g-AM.  to  morrow 

April  14,  1865       A.  Lincoln 


These  were  the  last  words  he  was  ever  to  write.28 

To  Colfax  he  said,  "You  will  accompany  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  me 
to  the  theater,  I  hope?"  But  Colfax  had  other  engagements— next 
day  he  was  leaving  for  the  Pacific  coast.  The  cards  of  Senator 
W.  M.  Stewart  of  Nevada  and  Judge  Niles  Searles  were  brought 
in,  and  Lincoln  sent  a  memorandum  appointing  ten  o'clock  Satur- 
day morning  as  the  hour  when  he  might  be  seen.  As  Mrs.  Lincoln 
and  he,  with  Ashmun  and  Colfax,  stepped  out  under  the  portico, 
Stewart  and  Searles  were  on  the  flagging  below  and  Isaac  N. 

28  The  original  is  in  the  Lincoln  Museum,  Washington. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  165 

Arnold,  a  representative  from  Illinois,  was  coming  up  the  walk. 
"Excuse  me  now,"  Lincoln  said  to  Arnold  from  the  carriage,  and 
to  Colfax,  "I  will  telegraph  you  at  San  Francisco."  Burke,  the 
burly  Irish  coachman,  started  his  team  and  the  carriage  rolled 
away  toward  the  residence  of  Senator  Ira  T.  Harris  of  New  York 
at  Fifteenth  and  H  Streets.  It  was  close  to  a  quarter  after  eight.29 

John  Parker,  the  special  guard,  was  even  now  on  his  way  to  the 
theater.  He  was  a  new  man  at  this  job,  having  been  detailed  from 
the  Metropolitan  Police  less  than  two  weeks  before.  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
with  whom  Hay  had  numerous  difficulties  regarding  household 
management  and  whom  (in  a  letter  to  Nicolay)  he  once  described 
as  "getting  more  Hell-cattical  day  by  day,"  had  seen  fit  to  dismiss 
the  veteran  doorkeeper  Edward  McManus,  and  Thomas  Pendel, 
one  of  the  original  detail  of  special  guards,  took  McManus'  place. 
The  vacancy  thus  made  was  filled  by  Parker,  whose  record  was 
such  that  he  ought  never  to  have  been  assigned  to  this  post.  After 
Parker  had  been  repeatedly  brought  to  trial  upon  sundry  com- 
plaints, Superintendent  Webb  on  August  3rd,  1863,  charged  him 
with  general  inefficiency,  specifying  that  in  a  period  of  about 
eighty-two  days  Parker  had  been  absent  forty-one.  Though  the 
complaint  was  dismissed,  Officer  Parker  was  warned.  On  April 
2nd,  1864,  he  was  charged  by  Sergeant  Skippon  of  the  sixth  pre- 
cinct with  being  insubordinate,  with  using  disrespectful  language, 
and  with  gross  neglect  of  duty.  He  was  tried  before  the  Board  of 
Metropolitan  Police  on  April  6th,  1864,  and  judgment  was  that 
he  be  dismissed  from  the  force.  Nevertheless  he  was  reinstated— 
apparently  after  Superintendent  Richards  took  office  on  Decem- 
ber 1st,  1864. 

Pendel  inquired  of  Parker  that  evening,  "John,  are  you  pre- 
pared?"—meaning  to  find  out  whether  Parker's  revolver  was  in 
order  and  handy  for  use. 

"Oh,  Tommy,  there's  no  danger,"  said  Alphonso  Donn,  another 

29  J.  W.  Starr,  "Lincoln's  Last  Day,"  "New  Light  on  Lincoln's  Last  Day,"  "Further 
Light  on  Lincoln's  Last  Day."  Brooks,  "Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,"  pp.  257-258. 
Crook,  "Through  Five  Administrations,"  pp.  65-67,  and  "Memories  of  the  White 
House,"  p.  40.  D.  H.  Bates,  "Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,"  pp.  131,  365-368. 
Carpenter,  "Six  Months  in  the  White  House,"  pp.  284-287.  Affidavit  of  H.  R.  Rath- 
bone  before  Justice  A.  B.  Olin  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  (in  the  archives 
of  the  Judge  Advocate  General). 


166  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

doorkeeper,  who  also  had  come  from  the  Metropolitan  Police  and 
had  been  a  special  guard  at  the  Executive  Mansion. 

"You  don't  know  what  might  happen,"  Pendel  insisted.  Then 
he  said  to  Parker:  "Now  you  start  down  to  the  theater,  to  be  ready 
for  the  President  when  he  reaches  there.  And  you  see  him  sale 
inside."  Like  Crook,  he  seems  to  have  been  distrustful  of  a  green- 
horn on  this  assignment— especially  distrustful,  it  may  be,  of  John 
Parker,  whom  he  had  known  as  a  patrolman  on  the  force.30 
Parker  started  at  once. 

About  seven  o'clock  John  Booth  was  seen  to  pass  out  of  the 
National  Hotel.  At  eight  he,  Lewis  Paine,  George  Atzerodt,  and 
in  all  probability  Davy  Herold  met  in  the  Herndon  House,  at 
Ninth  and  F  Streets,  where  Paine  had  been  living  while  Booth 
paid  the  bill.  It  was  diagonally  across  from  the  Patent  Office,  in 
the  same  "square"  as  the  theater,  and  only  a  few  steps  from  the 
opening  into  the  alley. 

In  the  theater  the  performance  had  begun— a  quarter  to  eight 
was  the  regular  time  for  the  overture.  Tenth  Street  had  been 
alive  with  the  assembling  crowd;  the  house  was  filled  except  for 
the  boxes;  players  and  audience  were  in  the  best  of  humor.  Harry 
Hawk,  the  Asa  Trenchard  of  the  evening,  felt  that  things  were 
going  smoothly.  But  glances  were  directed,  we  may  be  certain,  at 
the  vacant  "state  box."  31 

Suddenly,  about  eight-thirty,  there  was  a  halt  in  the  action.  In 
readiness  for  this  moment,  the  orchestra,  William  Withers  con- 
ducting, struck  up  "Hail  to  the  Chief";  the  audience  rose,  waved 
handkerchiefs,  applauded,  cheered.  The  President  came  to  the 
front  of  the  box  and  smilingly  acknowledged  the  cordial  welcome. 
The  drama  was  resumed.32 

The  entire  cast  seemed  in  the  mood,  whether  it  was  Ferguson 
the  call  boy,  who  at  short  notice  was  taking  Courtland  Hess'  small 

30  Pendel,  "Thirty-six  Years  in  the  White  House,"  pp.  37-40.  Records  of  the  Board 
of  Metropolitan  Police. 

31  Testimony  of  G.  W.  Bunker,  Surratt  Trial,  vol.  i,  p.  329.  Atzerodt's  statement 
read  before  the  Commission  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  Doster,  "Lincoln  and  Episodes 
of  the  Civil  War,"  p.  269.  Boston  Herald,  Apr.  11,  1897;  P-  2^- 

32  Testimony  of  H.  R.  Rathbone  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  Statement  of  William 
Withers  in  the  Lincoln  Museum.  Interview  with  Mrs.  J.  B.  Wright,  Boston  Globe, 
Apr.  11,  1915.  Statement  of  Harry  Hawk,  Boston  Herald,  Apr.  11,  1897. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  OF  APRIL  167 

part  of  Harry  Vernon,  or  E.  A.  Emerson,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
character  of  Lord  Dundreary;  or  Miss  Keene,  who,  on  the  author- 
ity of  the  long  strip  of  playbill,  had  enacted  Florence  Trenchard 
"upwards  of  iW  ONE  THOUSAND  NIGHTS  "^fi."  Grant's 
absence  could  not  mar  an  occasion  when  all  else  was  so  warmly 
en  rapport.  At  the  comic  passages  there  were  gusts  of  laughter. 


Eight     •     .     •     .     • 


PANDEMONIUM 


WHEN  Burke  the  coachman  reined  in  his  horses  before  the 
theater  at  about  eight-thirty,  Charles  Forbes,  a  personal  attendant 
who  served  as  footman,  swung  down  to  open  the  carriage  door.  A 
wooden  platform  or  horse  block  stood  at  the  curb,  and  the  party, 
having  alighted  upon  this,  was  convoyed  through  the  main  en- 
trance by  Forbes  and  the  special  guard  John  Parker.  Burke  drove 
forward  some  ten  or  fifteen  paces  toward  F  Street,  then  leaning 
back,  elbow  resting  on  the  carriage  roof,  drowsed  there,  largely 
oblivious  to  what  chanced  around  him. 

To  reach  the  "state  box,"  the  party,  with  Forbes  and  Parker, 
traversed  the  lobby  to  its  northern  end,  where  there  was  a  stair- 
case to  the  dress  circle;  then  climbed  the  stair  and,  preceded  by 
the  usher,  James  O'Brien,  crossed  behind  the  seats  of  the  dress 
circle  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  house.  Descending  the  steps  of 
the  dress  circle,  they  came  to  a  door  that  opened  inward  upon  a 
small  vestibule,  about  four  feet  in  width  by  perhaps  eight  in 
length.  They  could  not  see  behind  that  door  a  mortise  cut  roughly 
in  the  wall  nor,  lying  near,  a  wooden  bar  about  two  inches  square 
and  four  feet  long. 

On  the  left-hand  side  of  this  vestibule  was  the  closed  door  of 
box  7;  at  the  vestibule's  end  the  door  of  box  8  stood  open.  By  that 
farther  door  the  party  entered.  Small  wonder  that  in  the  door  to 
box  7,  in  the  angle  of  a  panel,  they  did  not  notice  a  hole  a  quarter 
of  an  inch  in  diameter,  looking  as  if  made  with  a  gimlet  and 
reamed  with  a  pocket  knife.  Removal  of  the  partition  (which  was 
an  inch  thick  and  about  seven  feet  high)  had  thrown  the  two 
boxes  into  one  box  of  irregular  shape  and  with  a  frontage  of  be- 

168 


PANDEMONIUM  169 

tween  ten  and  twelve  feet.  A  pillar  rising  from  the  balustrade 
divided  the  face  of  the  box  into  two  lofty  arches  from  which  hung 
draperies  of  buff  satin  and  curtains  of  Nottingham  lace.  The  walls 
were  covered  with  dark,  figured  paper;  the  floor  was  laid  with 
Turkey  carpet.  In  front  was  suspended  what  one  newspaper  styled 
"a  chaste  chandelier."  x 

This  theater  of  Ford's  was  no  shabby  relic,  with  an  atmosphere 
heavily  compounded  of  illuminating  gas,  paint,  and  the  effluvium 
of  audiences  long  gone.  It  was  less  than  two  years  old,  embodied 
the  latest  ideas  in  construction  and  equipment,  and  was  said  to 
possess  "all  the  acoustic  and  optical  advantages  of  an  Academy  of 
Music."  Orchestra,  parquet  circle,  and  spacious  dress  circle  (first 
balcony),  rising  by  gradual  incline,  were  provided  with  cane- 
bottomed  chairs  secured  to  the  floor.  The  parquet  circle  in 
theaters  of  the  period  was  back  of  the  orchestra  and  under  the 
dress  circle.  Its  name  was  often  shortened  to  parquet,  which  origi- 
nally had  been  a  synonym  for  pit  or  orchestra.2 

In  February  1864  a  "lounging  room"  connected  with  the  dress 
circle  had  been  advertised  for  use  "in  the  pauses  of  the  entertain- 
ment." This  room,  "richly  furnished"  and  with  "all  the  con- 
veniences and  appliances  of  a  modern  Drawing  Room,"  was  added 
by  cutting  through  from  the  dress  circle  to  the  second  floor  of  the 
three-story  brick  building  on  the  south.  The  ground  floor  was  oc- 
cupied by  Taltavull;  Harry  Ford  and  his  brother  James  had  rooms 
on  the  third.  Joining  the  stage  on  the  north  was  a  four-story  build- 
ing containing  dressing  rooms,  greenroom,  and  workshops. 

The  auditorium  ordinarily  seated  1,700  but  its  capacity,  in  a 
day  innocent  of  fire  laws,  could  be  swelled  to  2,300  or  possibly 
even  the  advertised  2,500.  James  J.  Gifford,  who  was  now  on  its 
staff  as  stage  carpenter,  was  the  theater's  architect  and  builder. 
During  construction  he  encountered  a  quicksand  in  the  Washing- 
ton soil,  but  the  walls,  from  eighteen  inches  to  two  feet  in  thick- 
ness, were  pushed  down  to  solid  ground  and  the  building  was  con- 
sidered amply  safe. 

1  Testimony  of  J.  J.  Gifford,  Surratt  Trial,  vol.  i,  p.  326.  Philadelphia  Inquirer, 
Apr.  17,  1865;  p.  1. 

2Prices  at  Ford's  on  Apr.  14  were:  orchestra,  $1;  parquet  circle  and  dress  circle, 
75  cents;  family  circle,  25  cents;  boxes,  $6  and  $10. 


170 


THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 


U 


Tenth  Stmt 


b 


GROUND  PLAN  OF  FORD'S 

(After  a  sketch  in  the  John  T.  Ford  Papers) 

a.  Building  adjoining  theater  on  south  (Taltavull's) — b.  Entrance  to 
corridor,  leading  to  footway  and  thus  up  steps  to  stage  door,g — f. 
Outside  stairs — c.  Office,  and  stairs  to  family  circle — d.  Lobby — e.  Stair- 
way to  dress  circle — h.  Musicians — k.  Stage — ii.  First-tier  boxes — mm. 
Scenes — n.  Building  adjoining  theater  on  north  (dressing  rooms,  green- 
room)— r.  Passageway — s.  Rear  door  (stairs  at  left,  leading  below  stage) 
— t.  Large  door    (for  bringing  in  scenery,  etc.) — u.  Public  alley. 


PANDEMONIUM  171 

This  night  the  furniture  of  the  "state  box"  consisted  of  a  sofa, 
an  armchair  on  casters,  a  number  of  side  chairs,  and  a  weighty 
rocking  chair.  The  rocking  chair  (belonging  to  a  set  with  some 
of  the  other  pieces)  was  kept  in  Harry  Ford's  room  and  sometimes 
brought  down  for  the  President's  use.  Harry  Ford  thought  it  "a 
very  nice  chair."  It  was  of  black  walnut,  and  seat,  arms,  and  back 
were  upholstered  in  red  damask.  The  rockers  fitted  into  the  corner 
at  the  left-hand  end  of  the  balustrade  (the  end  toward  the  audi- 
ence), so  the  chair  always  was  placed  there.  Lincoln  now  took  it.3 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  seated  at  his  right,  between  him  and  the  pillar; 
Miss  Harris  at  the  other  end  of  the  balustrade;  Major  Rathbone 
at  Miss  Harris'  left,  on  the  sofa  against  the  wall.  Rathbone  figured 
a  distance  of  about  eight  feet  between  the  President  and  himself, 
and  of  about  five  feet  between  the  President  and  the  door  by  which 
the  party  had  entered  from  the  little  vestibule.  The  height  of  the 
box  above  the  stage,  including  the  balustrade,  he  loosely  reckoned 
as  "about  ten  or  twelve  feet."  (In  the  afternoon  Edman  Spangler 
had  handed  up  a  hammer  from  the  stage  to  Harry  Ford,  who  was 
in  the  box,  arranging  flags  to  ornament  it.)4 

Two  United  States  flags  were  thrown  across  the  balustrade;  at 
either  side  of  the  box  a  fringed  United  States  flag  hung  from  a 
staff;  and  in  the  center,  fixed  to  the  pillar,  the  regimental  colors  of 
the  Treasury  Guard— white  spread  eagle  and  stars  on  a  blue 
ground— drooped  above  a  framed  portrait  of  Washington.  The 
Treasury  Guard  was  composed  of  employees  of  the  Treasury  De- 
partment and  the  colors  had  been  lent  for  the  evening.  Sur- 
rounded by  these  impromptu  adornments  and  by  the  lofty  dra- 
peries, the  four  persons  in  the  box  sat  almost  engulfed  in  shadows. 

Ladies  differed  as  to  Mrs.  Lincoln's  costume.  "A  new  spring  silk 
dress,  light  gray  in  color  and  with  a  black  pinhead  check,  and  bon- 
net to  match"— so  said  Helen  Truman,  who  that  night  played 
Augusta.  "A  black  velvet  cloak  edged  with  ermine,  a  black  velvet 
bonnet  trimmed  with  white  satin,"  said  Mrs.  J.  B.  Wright,  the 

3  Stanton  transferred  this  chair  to  O.  H.  Browning,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  for 
safekeeping  in  that  department.  For  years  in  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  it  was 
reclaimed  by  Mrs.  H.  C.  Ford  (Blanche  Chapman)  and  sold  to  Henry  Ford,  who 
placed  it  in  the  museum  of  the  Edison  Memorial  Institute  at  Dearborn,  Mich. 

4Rathbone's  affidavit  before  Justice  Olin,  Apr.  17.  Testimony  of  H.  C.  Ford  and 
J.  P.  Ferguson  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial. 


172  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

stage  manager's  wife,  who,  with  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Taft,  sat  in 
the  fourth  row  of  the  orchestra  across  from  the  box.  (She  added 
that  both  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  Miss  Harris  kept  on  their  bonnets 
and  wraps.) 5  In  any  case  the  First  Lady  did  not  wear  an  evening 
gown  with  a  headdress  of  artificial  flowers,  as  ordinarily  she  did 
and  as  we  may  see  her  in  Kate  Helm's  portrait  of  her. 

For  Miss  Julia  Chapman,  a  visitor  in  Washington,  the  flags  hid 
all  but  the  "young  and  lovely"  Miss  Harris.  Miss  Harris'  fiance, 
Maj.  Henry  R.  Rathbone,  U.  S.  A.,  was  likewise  her  stepbrother 
and  they  lived  under  the  same  roof— that  of  Ira  Harris,  who  had 
taken  Seward's  place  as  senator  from  New  York.  Rathbone  was 
a  slight,  smallish  man  with  thick  "Burnsides"  akin  to  the  whiskers 
affected  by  Dundreary  in  the  play. 

Although  (as  Helen  Truman  said)  "the  attendance  was  the  best 
of  the  season  and  the  house  was  packed  to  the  walls,"  nevertheless 
it  happened,  as  it  had  on  previous  occasions  (though  not  fre- 
quently), that  no  other  box  was  taken.  Boxes  had  usually  been  in 
demand  in  Washington.  John  T.  Ford  said  a  box  "is  not  a  favor- 
able place  to  see  a  performance,  but  it  is  a  fashionable  place  here 
to  which  to  take  company."  Yet  on  April  14th  the  remaining  six 
boxes  were  vacant,  and  this  fact  was  to  be  caught  up  into  the  tex- 
ture of  myth  that  would  be  ever  more  thickly  spun  around  the 
events  of  that  night. 

Conductor  Withers  was  expecting  that  his  specially  composed 
"Honor  to  Our  Soldiers,"  with  soli  and  chorus,  would  be  sung 
between  the  first  and  second  acts,  but  Stage  Manager  Wright  in- 
formed him  through  the  speaking  tube  that  it  must  be  postponed 
until  the  next  intermission.  Withers  was  considerably  annoyed. 
He  had  been  jilted  that  day  and  already  was  laboring  under  a 
sense  of  injustice.6 

The  curtain  rose  upon  the  second  act,  bringing  Asa  to  snicker 
at  Mrs.  Mountchessington's  idea  that  bison  are  hunted  on  the 
prairies  of  Vermont,  Dundreary  to  mourn  the  loss  of  his  hair-dye 
and  ask  such  riddles  as  "Why  does  a  duck  go  under  water?"  and 
"Why  does  a  duck  come  out  of  the  water?"  Scene  two  revealed  a 

8  New  York  World,  Feb.  17,  1924;  p.  8.  Boston  Globe,  Apr.  11,  1915. 
•Toledo  Times,  Feb.  12,  1911. 


PANDEMONIUM  173 

deep  set— the  picturesque  dairy  of  Trenchard  Manor  and  a  bit  of 
garden,  with  Mary  Meredith  7  (Jennie  Gourlay)  presiding  there 
and  Asa  interested  "to  see  how  they  make  cheese  in  this  darned 
country."  Presently  Dundreary  (E.  A.  Emerson)  and  the  delicate 
Georgina  (Miss  M.  Hart)  entered.  Dundreary  placed  Georgina  on 
a  rustic  bench  and  Georgina  murmured,  "Thank  you,  my  lord; 
you  are  so  kind  to  me,  and  I  am  so  delicate." 

Dun  Now  let  me  administer  to  your  wants.  How  would  you  like  a 
roast  chestnut? 

Geo    No,  my  lord,  I'm  too  delicate. 

Dun  Well,  then,  a  peanut;  there  is  a  great  deal  of  nourishment  in 
peanuts. 

Geo    No,  thank  you. 

Dun  Then  what  can  I  do  for  you? 

Geo  If  you  please,  ask  the  dairymaid  to  let  me  have  a  seat  in  the 
dairy.  I  am  afraid  of  the  draft  here. 

Dundreary's  wartime  retort  had  been: 

Oh,  you  want  to  get  out  of  the  draft,  do  you?  Well,  you're  not  the 
only  one  that  wants  to  escape  the  draft — 

that  or  something  like  it.  But  now  the  line  was: 

You  are  mistaken.  The  draft  has  already  been  stopped  by  order  of 
the  President! 

At  this,  Julia  Chapman  said,  the  applause  was  "long  and  loud."  It 
was  an  impulsive  expression  of  relief  that  the  long  stress  was  over 
—a  friendly  greeting  to  the  man  in  the  box,  who  had  fought  a  good 
fight  and  kept  the  faith.8 

With  the  descending  curtain,  Stage  Manager  Wright  notified 
Conductor  Withers  that  "Honor  to  Our  Soldiers"  must  again  be 
deferred,  and  Withers  "became  somewhat  exercised." 

While  this  scene  had  been  on,  John  Booth  had  led  the  bay  mare 
by  the  bridle-rein  up  the  alley  to  the  rear  door  of  the  theater.  J.  L. 
DeBonay,  "responsible  utility,"  who  was  playing  the  servant  John 
Wickens,9  happened  to  be  standing  near  the  door.  After  dialogue 

1  The  name  was  erroneously  given  on  the  playbill  as  Mary  Trenchard. 

8  Lamon,  "Recollections,"  p.  282.  (Lamon  has  it  that  E.  A.  Sothern  was  the  Dun- 
dreary.) Chapman  letter   (Apr.  16),  Century  Magazine,  Apr.  1909;  pp.  917-918. 

9  The  playbill  has  Whicker  and  Pitman  gives  Wigger. 


174  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

with  Mary  Meredith,  he  had  quitted  the  scene  by  passing  behind 
the  garden  fence  and  out  at  the  third  entrance  on  the  right  of  the 
stage.  The  narrow  passage  in  which  he  was  standing  ran  between 
the  scenes  and  the  wall,  and  extended  from  the  first  entrance,  past 
the  door  leading  to  greenroom  and  dressing  rooms,  and  straight 
back  to  the  alley  door  at  the  rear.  As  it  averaged  only  about  three 
feet  in  width,  orders  were  to  keep  it  scrupulously  clear  for  ready 
access  to  the  stage.  Even  then  it  must  have  been  a  tight  squeeze  for 
actresses  in  the  bulging  skirts  of  the  period,  such  as  were  worn  in 
"Our  American  Cousin."  There  was  a  similar  passage  on  the  O.  P. 
side,  but  less  care  was  taken  of  it  because  decidedly  fewer  entrances 
were  made  from  the  left.  On  the  left  also  were  stairs  to  the  paint 
loft  and  the  "flies." 

Booth  said  to  DeBonay,  with  the  air  of  a  privileged  character, 
"Tell  Spangler  to  come  to  the  door  and  hold  my  horse."  Spangler 
was  at  his  post  on  the  opposite  side,  ready  for  his  work  of  shifting 
or  for  any  emergency.  Two  scene  shifters  were  on  each  side  and 
their  continuous  presence  was  required  by  the  stage  carpenter  who 
directed  them.  Opening  behind  the  rear  door,  a  covered  stairway 
led  to  the  region  below  stage.  DeBonay  went  down  these  stairs, 
crossed  under  the  stage  to  the  O.  P.  side,  and  told  Spangler,  "Mr. 
Booth  wants  you  to  hold  his  horse."  Spangler  left  his  post,  came 
to  the  rear  door,  and,  explaining  that  he  could  not  stay,  took  the 
rein.  Apparently  confident  that  Spangler  would  get  somebody  to 
care  for  the  horse,  Booth  passed  inside. 

He  asked  DeBonay  whether  it  was  possible  to  cut  across  to  the 
stage  entrance,  and  DeBonay  answered  that  the  dairy  scene  was 
now  on,  taking  in  the  deep  stage.  Booth  descended  the  stairs  and 
Spangler  called  to  DeBonay,  "Tell  'Peanuts'  to  come  here  and  hold 
this  horse.  I  haven't  time."  "Peanuts"  Burroughs  distributed  hand- 
bills for  the  theater  and  was  stage  doorkeeper.  He  was  now  sitting 
at  his  door,  right  by  the  first  entrance  on  the  left.  DeBonay  fol- 
lowed Booth  under  the  stage  and  up  on  the  other  side;  Booth  then 
going  out  of  the  stage  entrance,  through  the  alley,  and  into  Talta- 
vull's  saloon,  while  DeBonay,  after  delivering  Spangler's  message 
to  "Peanuts,"  went  by  the  alleyway  to  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  the 
theater. 

"Peanuts"  crossed  under  and  argued  with  Spangler  about  hold- 


PANDEMONIUM  175 

ing  Booth's  horse.  "He  told  me  to  hold  it,"  "Peanuts"  said  later, 
"and  if  there  was  anything  wrong  to  lay  the  blame  on  him;  so  I 
held  the  horse."  John  Booth,  in  his  suasive  fashion,  had  already  in- 
terfered with  the  peaceful  routine  of  Ford's,  and  Edman  Spangler, 
stagehand  and  crab  fisher,  would  rue  this  night  and  his  compliant 
but  unsuspecting  part  in  it.  "Peanuts,"  sprawled  on  a  carpenter's 
bench  that  stood  in  the  alley,  held  the  mare  and  perhaps  thought 
of  the  tip  that  Mr.  Booth  would  give  him.  Mr.  Booth  was  in  Tal- 
tavull's,  where  he  had  called  for  whisky  instead  of  the  customary 
brandy.  He  then  asked  for  a  "chaser"  of  water  and  laid  his  money 
on  the  bar. 

The  curtain  fell  upon  the  long  dairy  scene,  and  the  act  was  over. 
Louis  Carland,  the  theater's  costumer,  was  on  the  O.  P.  side,  where 
he  saw  Gifford,  the  stage  carpenter,  talking  to  Spangler,  and  pres- 
ently Conductor  Withers  and  John  Dyott  (the  Abel  Murcott  of 
the  evening)  strolled  up  and  asked  Gifford  and  Carland  to  join 
them  in  a  drink.  As  they  went  into  Taltavull's  place,  Booth  was 
going  out.  In  less  than  two  hours  the  purlieus  of  Ford's  would  ap- 
pear to  have  seen  a  flood  of  miscellaneous  tippling. 

Coachman  Burke  was  roused  from  his  dozing  by  "two  of  my 
friends,"  who  suggested  that  he  have  a  glass  of  ale  with  them.  He 
thought  this  was  at  the  close  of  the  first  act.  Leaving  "a  man"  (a 
stranger,  presumably)  to  care  for  the  horses,  he  was  gone  for  as 
much  as  ten  minutes  by  his  own  count— no  doubt  longer.  Return- 
ing, he  took  his  place  on  the  driver's  box,  but  where  his  friends 
were  is  not  shown.  With  astonishment  we  learn  from  Burke  that 
they  were  the  "special  police  officer  and  the  footman  of  the  Presi- 
dent"—John  Parker  and  Charles  Forbes.  Both  of  them,  therefore, 
were  absent  from  their  posts  during  an  intermission,  when  it 
would  seem  that  their  presence  was  specially  needed,  and  both 
were  drinking  while  on  duty.10 

"Our  American  Cousin"  had  another  act,  with  seven  scenes.  We 
do  not  know  what  Lincoln  thought  of  the  play.  To  Harry  Hawk 
it  looked  from  the  stage  as  if  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  enjoyed  it  so 

10  Testimony  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  Spangler's  statement,  "The  Life  of  Dr. 
Samuel  A.  Mudd,"  p.  325.  Testimony  of  L.  J.  Carland  and  F.  P.  Burke,  Surratt  Trial, 
vol.  i,  p.  571;  vol.  ii,  p.  792.  Burke's  statement  in  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate 
General. 


176  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

much."  Dr.  Charles  Taft,  army  surgeon,  writing  of  what  he  had 
glimpsed  from  his  seat  in  the  orchestra's  fourth  row,  said  that 
Mrs.  Lincoln  often  called  the  President's  attention  to  this  or  that 
upon  the  stage  and  "seemed  to  take  great  pleasure  in  witnessing  his 
enjoyment."  On  the  other  hand,  Thomas  H.  Sherman,  at  one  time 
secretary  to  James  G.  Blaine,  declared  Lincoln  was  "so  shielded 
by  draperies  he  could  be  seen  from  the  floor  only  when  he  leaned 
forward."  n  Helen  Truman  said  she  had  always  noticed  that, 
whereas  Mrs.  Lincoln  applauded  a  performance  by  hand-clapping, 
Lincoln  did  not,  though  he  would  laugh  heartily  on  occasion. 

This  work  of  Taylor's  has  survived  in  a  few  old  prompt  books 
and  a  wretchedly  printed  version  from  battered  plates  dated  1869. 
Walt  Whitman— who  was  not  at  Ford's  that  April  night  (though  it 
has  been  stated  that  he  was)  but  may  have  seen  the  play  elsewhere— 
wrote  of  it  as  "A  piece  ...  in  which,  among  other  characters,  so 
call'd,  a  Yankee,  certainly  such  a  one  as  was  never  seen,  or  the  least 
like  it  ever  seen,  in  North  America,  is  introduced  in  England,  with 
a  varied  fol-de-rol  of  talk,  plot,  scenery,  and  such  phantasmagoria 
as  goes  to  make  up  a  modern  popular  drama."  .  .  .12  Since  Whit- 
man, others  have  made  disparaging  remarks  about  it,  judging  it 
by  its  literary  quality. 

It  was  originally  written  for  Joshua  Silsbee,  American  comedian 
popular  in  London,  but  was  not  used  by  him.  The  allegedly  im- 
possible Yankee  plainly  derives  from  sources  as  reputable  as  Dick- 
ens' "Martin  Chuzzlewit"  and  "American  Notes,"  but  such  in- 
gratiating touches  were  added  that  he  was  as  much  to  the  taste  of 
American  audiences  then  as  "The  Man  from  Home"  was  later. 
Not  he,  however,  but  Lord  Dundreary,  prototype  of  all  "silly  ass" 
stage  Englishmen,  gave  "Our  American  Cousin"  its  vogue  in  the 
United  States.  Under  the  name  "Lord  Dundreary"  it  was  revived 
by  E.  H.  Sothern  at  the  Lyric  Theatre,  New  York,  January  27th, 
1908,  and  had  a  successful  run.  Perhaps  Lincoln,  with  his  wartime 
experience  of  Britain's  governing  class  in  the  persons  of  Lord 
Lyons,  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  and  Lord  John  Russell,  found  amuse- 
ment in  this  satire  by  an  editor  of  Punch. 

11  See  their  accounts  in  the  Century  Magazine,  Feb.  1893,  and  the  World  (New 
York),  Feb.  12,  1926. 

13  Bucke,  Harned,  and  Traubel  (eds.),  "The  Complete  Writings  of  Walt  Whitman," 
vol.  ii  of  Prose  Works,  p.  248. 


PANDEMONIUM  177 

But  Lincoln's  mind,  as  Gamaliel  Bradford  felt,  "was  rather  on 
the  coming  dreamy  years  than  on  the  play."  We  will  go  to  Europe, 
he  said  to  Mrs.  Lincoln,  go  to  the  Holy  Land— to  the  city  I  always 
have  wished  to  see,  Jerusalem.  It  was  a  supplement  to  his  talk  in 
the  carriage  on  the  afternoon's  drive.  He  got  up  once  and  put  on 
his  overcoat,  as  if  he  felt  a  chill  air  blown  across  him.13 

John  Booth  had  been  in  and  out  of  the  lobby  several  times.  He 
had  come  up  to  Buckingham,  the  doorkeeper,  and  asked,  "What 
time  o'  night  is  it?"  Buckingham  told  him  to  step  in  where  he 
could  see  the  clock.  A  little  while  afterward  he  crossed  the  lobby, 
entered  the  house,  scanned  the  audience  for  a  moment,  and  went 
outside  again.  In  a  short  time  he  returned,  looked  in  at  the  box- 
office  window,  then  put  an  arm  through  and  laid  on  a  shelf  there 
a  partly  smoked  cigar.  To  Harry  Ford,  who  was  in  the  office,  he 
said  in  mock-heroic  style: 

Who'er  this  se'gar  dares  displace 
Must  meet  Wilkes  Booth  face  to  face. 

Harry  recognized  this  as  an  extempore  parody  of  lines  in  W.  B. 
Rhodes'  burlesque  "Bombastes  Furioso,"  which  had  held  the  stage 
for  a  half-century.  General  Bombastes  hung  his  boots  on  a  tree  and 
affixed  to  them  a  scrap  of  paper  bearing  the  words: 

Who  dares  this  pair  of  boots  displace 
Must  meet  Bombastes  face  to  face. 
Thus  do  I  challenge  all  the  human  race. 

John  Booth  did  not  complete  the  tristich,  but  his  was  a  defiance 
as  inclusive  as  Bombastes'  and  equally  reckless.  Buckingham 
mechanically  extended  a  hand  for  a  ticket,  and  John  took  the  hand 
by  two  fingers.  "You  don't  want  a  ticket,  Buck,"  he  said,  and 
passed  on  up  the  stairway  to  the  dress  circle,  humming  a  tune.14 

The  curtain  had  risen  upon  the  first  scene  of  the  third  act,  with 
the  dairy  set  retained.  Action  on  the  stage  neared  the  crux  of  the 
drama,  Asa's  burning  of  old  Mark  Trenchard's  will.  Asa  was  the 

""The  Wife  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  Harper's  Magazine,  Sept.  1925;  pp.  496-497. 
Rathbone's  affidavit. 

14  Buckingham,  "Reminiscences  and  Souvenirs,"  p.  13.  New  York  Evening  Post, 
July  8,  1884  (interview  with  Harry  Ford,  from  the  Washington  Star).  Personal  state- 
ment by  Blanche  Chapman   (Mrs.  H.  C.  Ford)  to  the  present  writer. 


178  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

legatee  and  Mary  Meredith  came  into  £80,000  when  he  destroyed 
the  will.  Mary  (Jennie  Gourlay)  and  Asa  sat  vis-a-vis  on  a  bench  at 
right  center,  and  Asa,  having  thrown  away  the  stick  he  was  whit- 
tling, brought  the  dialogue  round  to  old  Mark  and  entered  on 
the  longest  speech  in  the  play.  Most  of  the  audience  was  listening 
raptly  as  Asa  said,  "Will  you  excuse  my  lighting  a  cigar?"  and  con- 
tinued: 

"Give  me  the  light,"  says  he.  Wal,  I  gave  him  the  candle  that  stood 
by  his  bedside,  and  he  took  the  sheet  of  paper  I  was  telling  you  of,  just 
as  I  might  take  this.  [Takes  will  from  pocket.]  And  he  twisted  it  up  as 
I  might  this.  [Lights  will.]  And  he  lights  it  just  this  way,  and  he 
watches  it  burn  slowly  and  slowly  away. 

Sitting  there  on  the  bench,  Jennie  Gourlay  raised  her  eyes  to 
the  dress  circle  and  in  the  glow  of  the  dimmed  house-lights  saw 
John  Booth.  He  was  at  the  end  of  the  foyer  behind  the  dress  circle, 
on  her  left  as  she  looked  diagonally  across  from  the  stage.  It  was 
not  surprising  to  see  him  there— he  had  the  freedom  of  the  house, 
but  Jennie  Gourlay  was  "shocked  at  his  pallor  and  a  wild  look 
in  his  eyes."  He  must  be  ill,  she  thought.15 

In  the  passage  back  of  the  dress  circle,  not  far  from  the  door  of 
the  vestibule  to  the  "state  box,"  were  Lieut.  A.  M.  S.  Crawford  of 
the  Veteran  Reserve  Corps  and  his  friend  Capt.  Theodore  Mc- 
Gowan,  assistant  adjutant-general  to  Gen.  Christopher  C.  Augur, 
commanding  the  military  department  of  Washington.  Having 
come  in  just  after  the  President  arrived  and  having  viewed  the 
box  from  the  dress  circle's  left  side,  they  had  moved  over  to  the 
right  side  and,  like  others,  had  taken  extra  chairs  there  provided 
for  those  who  had  been  unable  to  get  regular  seats. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  third  act's  first  scene,  a  gentleman  had 
passed  them.  He  was  inquiring  for  Charles  Forbes,  the  attendant 
and  footman,  whose  appearance  was  familiar  to  Washingtonians 
generally  and  who  was  sometimes  referred  to  as  "the  President's 
messenger."  Forbes  was  in  seat  300,  the  one  nearest  to  the  vestibule 
door,  and  somebody  pointed  him  out.  The  gentleman  handed 
Forbes  an  official-looking  envelope  and  left  the  theater.  He  was 
S.  P.  Hanscom,  editor  of  the  Daily  National  Republican,  who  said 

15  Minneapolis  Journal,  Apr.  27,  1914. 


PANDEMONIUM  179 

he  had  been  asked  at  the  Executive  Mansion  to  give  the  "dispatch" 
to  the  President.  A  scene  being  on,  he  delivered  the  envelope  to 
Forbes  instead. 

Now  another  intruder  appeared,  and  McGowan  and  Crawford 
were  again  broken  in  upon.  This  man,  Crawford  said,  had  black 
hair,  black  mustache,  dusky  eyes,  and  was  wearing  a  dark  felt  hat. 
Crawford  at  first  thought  him  to  be  drunk,  but  quickly  noted  a 
peculiar  "glare  in  his  eye."  The  man  picked  his  way  by  and  stepped 
down  one  step.  There  he  paused,  surveying  audience  and  stage. 
The  scene  had  changed  and  the  stage  had  been  "closed  in"  with 
flats  to  show  a  room  in  Trenchard  Manor.  The  interval  from  the 
scene  to  the  middle  of  the  footlights  was  about  twenty  feet.  In  the 
center  of  the  back  wall  was  a  doorway  hung  with  portieres,  behind 
which  was  a  set  piece  to  mask  the  opening.  Mrs.  Mountchessington 
(known  to  Asa  as  the  "old  gal"),  Miss  Augusta  Mountchessington 
(out  for  Asa's  money),  and  Asa  (now  without  a  fortune)  were  on 
the  scene. 

The  dark  man  stood  looking.  Then  he  took  from  a  pocket  what 
seemed  to  be  a  number  of  visiting  cards  and  with  rather  punc- 
tilious care  selected  one.  He  stepped  down  the  next  step  of  the 
aisle,  which  brought  him  to  the  right  side  of  Charles  Forbes,  and, 
bending  over  Forbes,  held  out  the  card.  What  was  on  that  card? 
Was  the  card  taken  into  the  box  by  Forbes,  or  did  Forbes  on  his 
own  responsibility  give  the  dark  man  permission  to  enter  the  box? 
We  shall  probably  never  know  for  sure  the  answers  to  these  ques- 
tions. The  attention  of  both  Crawford  and  McGowan  was  diverted 
to  the  stage.  When  next  they  turned  to  glance  at  the  dark  man, 
they  saw  him  entering  the  vestibule,  whose  door  he  closed  behind 
him.16 

Laura  Keene,  with  young  W.  J.  Ferguson,  was  waiting  in  the 
first  right-hand  entrance.  She  had  been  gratified  at  the  smooth  per- 
formance because  in  the  audience  were  not  only  the  President  and 
Mrs.  Lincoln  but  also  friends  of  John  Lutz,  Miss  Keene's  manager 
and  second  husband.  On  the  other  side,  DeBonay,  having  returned 
from  the  front  of  the  theater,  was  leaning  against  the  flat,  waiting 

18  McGowan's  account,  New  York  Tribune,  Apr.  17,  1865,  Commercial  Advertiser 
(New  York)  and  Philadelphia  Inquirer  of  that  date.  Crawford's  statement  in  the 
Tanner  Papers,  Union  League  Club,  Philadelphia. 


180  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

for  the  curtain  to  fall  on  that  scene.  In  the  third  entrance  on  the 
right,  Miss  Jennie  Gourlay  was  talking  with  Conductor  Withers. 
Miss  Gourlay  was  the  leading  lady  of  the  Ford  stock  company  and 
the  following  night  was  to  be  her  benefit  night,  with  "The  Octo- 
roon" as  the  attraction.  Withers  had  just  learned  from  Stage 
Manager  Wright,  in  the  second  entrance,  that  "Honor  to  Our 
Soldiers"  would  be  rendered  at  the  close  of  the  performance  and 
was  on  his  way  to  the  orchestra  pit  via  the  passage  under  the  stage. 
Edman  Spangler  was  immediately  in  back  of  the  doorway  in  the 
scenery.17 

James  P.  Ferguson  (restaurant  keeper  on  the  "upper"  side  of 
Ford's),  who  was  in  the  front  of  the  dress  circle  opposite  the  "state 
box,"  said  Lincoln  "was  leaning  his  hand  on  the  rail,  and  was 
looking  down  at  a  person  in  the  orchestra,— not  looking  on  the 
stage.  He  had  the  flag  that  decorated  the  box  [at  his  left]  pulled 
around,  and  was  looking  between  the  post  and  the  flag."  The  flag 
hung  at  such  an  angle  that  it  would  have  partly  obscured  his  view. 
According  to  Ferguson,  General  Burnside  took  an  orchestra  seat 
about  this  time;  and  Ferguson  surmised  that  it  was  Burnside  at 
whom  Lincoln  was  gazing.  Mrs.  Wright,  the  stage  manager's  wife 
(fourth  row  in  the  orchestra),  said  that  the  President  was  "leaning 
slightly  forward,  with  his  arm  on  the  cushioned  edge  of  the  box, 
his  chin  resting  in  his  hand,"  and  was  "looking  into  space  as  if  in 
deep  thought."  18 

The  brave  old  Flag  drooped  o'er  him, 
(A  fold  in  the  hard  hand  lay,) — 
He  looked,  perchance,  on  the  play, — 

But  the  scene  was  a  shadow  before  him, 
For  his  thoughts  were  far  away. 

(H.  H.  Brownell) 

17  Minneapolis  Journal,  Apr.  27,  1914.  New  York  Tribune,  Feb.  6,  1916.  Clark, 
"Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  National  Capital,"  pp.  107-108.  New  York  Times,  Apr.  18, 
1915.  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Feb.  12,  1929.  Testimony  of  DeBonay  and  Withers  at 
the  Conspiracy  Trial,  of  Raybold  at  the  Surratt  Trial.  Spangler  in  "The  Life  of  Dr. 
Samuel  A.  Mudd,"  pp.  325-326. 

"Poore,  vol.  i,  pp.  190-191.  Surratt  Trial,  vol.  i,  pp.  129-131.  Dorchester   (Mass.) 

Beacon,  Apr.   11,   1896 Burnside  was  reported  as  making  an  address  in  Nassau 

Street,  New  York,  at  three  o'clock  the  following  afternoon,  which  would  raise  a 
question  as  to  Ferguson's  accuracy  in  this  particular. 


PANDEMONIUM  181 

On  the  stage,  Mrs.  Mountchessington  (Mrs.  Muzzy)  said  to 
Augusta    (Helen  Truman),  "Augusta,  dear,  to  your  room." 

Aug  Yes,  ma.  The  nasty  beast!  [Exit 

Mrs  M  I  am  aware,  Mr.  Trenchard,  you  are  not  used  to  the  manners 
of  good  society,  and  that  alone  will  excuse  the  impertinence  of  which 
you  have  been  guilty.  [Exit 

Asa  (Harry  Hawk)  was  the  only  figure  on  the  scene.  He  was 
standing  a  little  back  of  the  line  of  the  boxes,  and  behind  him  was 
the  curtained  doorway.  Miss  Clara  Harris  and  her  fiance  were 
intent  upon  Asa's  soliloquy.  William  Withers'  orchestra  was  mute, 
and  neither  behind  the  footlights  nor  in  all  that  thronged  house 
was  an  ear  sensitive  enough  to  catch  from  offstage  the  eerie  strains 
of  the  danse  macabre. 

Asa  Don't  know  the  manners  of  good  society,  eh?  Wal,  I  guess  I  know 
enough  to  turn  you  inside  out,  old  gal — you  sockdologizing  old  man- 
trap! 

Mary  Lincoln  laughed.  Instantly  there  was  a  sound  like  the  re- 
port of  a  firearm,  muffled  but  distinct.  Hawk  thought  it  came  from 
the  property  room.  Then  at  the  front  of  the  President's  box  he 
saw  a  man  brandishing  a  knife. 

Shouting  words  that  Hawk  did  not  understand,  the  man  was 
over  the  balustrade.  He  landed  upon  the  stage  in  a  kneeling  pos- 
ture, about  two  feet  out  from  the  lower  box  next  to  the  footlights, 
making  a  long  rent  in  the  green-baize  stage  carpet.  Harry  Ford  in 
the  ticket-office  had  heard  the  shot  and,  opening  the  little  window 
that  gave  on  the  parquet  circle,  he  saw  the  man  crouched  to  the 
stage.  He  could  not  guess  what  had  happened,  nor  could  Buck- 
ingham, the  doorkeeper,  who,  through  the  doorway  from  the 
lobby,  got  sight  of  the  man  crossing  toward  the  "prompt  side"— 
crossing  rapidly,  with  a  gait  that  Mrs.  Wright  described  as  "like 
the  hopping  of  a  bull-frog,"  flourishing  the  knife  as  he  went. 

Hawk  had  backed  away  and  run  from  the  scene,  up  the  stair 
leading  to  the  flies.  The  man  disappeared  into  the  first  entrance. 
All  had  happened  with  an  incredible  swiftness.  Smoke  drifted  out 
of  the  President's  box.  For  a  moment  the  greater  part  of  the  audi- 
ence sat  as  if  in  a  trance. 


182  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Abruptly,  from  within  the  box,  a  piercing  scream  rang  out— and 
the  house  became  an  inferno.  "There  will  never  be  anything  like 
it  on  earth,"  declared  Helen  Truman.  "The  shouts,  groans,  curses, 
smashing  of  seats,  screams  of  women,  shuffling  of  feet  and  cries  of 
terror  created  a  pandemonium  that  must  have  been  more  terrible 
to  hear  than  that  attending  the  assassination  of  Caesar.  Through 
all  the  ages  it  will  stand  out  in  my  memory  as  the  hell  of  hells." 

At  the  instant  when  the  man  came  over  the  balustrade,  James 
Ferguson  had  seen  the  President  raise  his  head— "and  then  it  hung 
back."  From  the  same  point  of  vantage  (the  dress  circle  opposite 
the  box)  W.  H.  Taylor  had  distinctly  seen  Lincoln  try  dazedly  to 
rise.  Others,  too,  had  seen  these  things,  or  Mrs.  Lincoln  clutching 
at  the  President's  arm,  or  Major  Rathbone  beside  the  President's 
chair.19 

The  huge  J.  B.  Stewart,  member  of  a  law  firm  with  offices  on 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  said  to  be  the  tallest  man  in  Washington 
(overtopping  "long  Abraham"  by  some  two  inches),  had  clam- 
bered upon  the  stage  and  gone  dashing  after  the  fugitive.  He  had 
been  sitting  well  forward  in  the  orchestra  and  had  moved  with 
surprising  agility,  calling,  "Stop  that  man!"  Close  on  Stewart's 
heels  went  young  James  Knox,  from  the  second  row  of  orchestra 
chairs  quite  near  the  box.20  Knox  got  lost  in  the  scenery  and  came 
back.  Voices  from  the  box  asked  for  brandy  and  a  surgeon.  Dr. 
Charles  Taft,  army  surgeon  in  uniform,  began  to  fight  his  way  to 
the  stage,  while  his  wife  cried,  "You  sha'n't  go!  They'll  kill  you, 
too— I  know  they  will!"  As  he  was  lifted  from  stage  to  box,  the 
cape  was  torn  from  his  overcoat.  A  pitcher  of  water  was  handed  up. 

There  were  shouts  of  "Hang  him!"  "Kill  him!"  Chairs  were 
torn  from  their  fastenings.  Many  persons  were  in  tears.  Actors  and 
actresses  were  jumbled  in  confusion  on  the  stage  with  those  of  the 

"Affidavits  of  Miss  Harris  and  Major  Rathbone.  Washington  Star,  May  16,  1865. 
Washington  Weekly  Chronicle,  May  20,  1865.  Boston  Globe,  Apr.  11,  1915.  Boston 
Herald,  Apr.  11,  1897.  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  Apr.  22,  1865.  New  York  World,  Feb. 
17,  1924. 

20  At  the  Conspiracy  Trial,  Stewart  testified  that  he  was  in  the  front  row  of 
orchestra  seats  on  the  right-hand  side.  The  record  of  his  testimony  at  the  Surratt 
Trial  has:  "Q.  You  were  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  stage,  as  I  understand,  from  that 
on  which  Booth  jumped.  A.  Yes;  I  was  on  the  right-hand  aisle,  I  should  judge  about 
twenty  feet  from  the  extreme  right-hand  side  of  the  stage  [i.e.,  looking  toward  the 
audience]"   (vol.  i,  p.  127). 


PANDEMONIUM  183 

audience  who  kept  mounting  it.  Some  of  the  musicians  had  left 
their  instruments  behind  them.  Mrs.  Wright  put  her  foot  through 
a  'cello  that  she  seems  to  have  been  trying  to  use  as  a  ladder. 

Doorkeeper  Buckingham  unfastened  the  other  doors  from  lobby 
to  street.  ''Buck,"  said  Harry  Ford,  "step  out  to  the  curb  and  get 
Mayor  Wallach— you'll  find  him  there.  Ask  him  to  come  in  and  re- 
quest the  people  to  leave  the  theater."  Wallach  finally  reached  the 
stage  and  from  it  announced  what  already  was  generally  known— 
that  the  President  had  been  shot.  He  asked  the  audience  to  leave 
as  quietly  as  possible.  Tenth  Street  was  rapidly  filling  with  a 
crowd.  Soldiers  of  the  Veteran  Reserve  Corps  arrived  and,  using 
the  butts  of  their  guns,  made  a  lane  to  453,  the  house  of  William 
Petersen,  across  the  way.  Doctor  Taft  had  decided  that  it  would  be 
fatal  to  drive  the  wounded  Lincoln  over  the  cobbles  of  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue  to  the  Executive  Mansion. 

Down  the  stairway  from  the  dress  circle,  men  came  bearing  the 
unconscious  figure.  Weeping  and  wringing  her  hands,  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln followed,  assisted  by  a  Major  Potter  and  by  Major  Rathbone, 
whose  left  upper  arm  dripped  blood  as  he  walked.  Behind  them 
was  Miss  Harris.  Buckingham  held  open  a  door  for  the  sorrowful 
procession.  When  it  had  passed  out,  he  turned  to  note  Laura 
Keene,  who  stood  there  in  the  lobby,  her  back  to  the  ticket  win- 
dow. As  if  she  were  treading  the  boards,  she  exclaimed  in  her 
clear  tones,  "For  God's  sake,  try  to  capture  the  murderer!" 

Armed  soldiers  explored  the  house,  in  which  the  lights  had  been 
first  dimmed  to  induce  the  crowd  to  leave  and  then  raised  to  give 
Superintendent  Richards  of  the  Metropolitan  Police  an  oppor- 
tunity for  inspection.  In  dress  circle  and  family  circle  stragglers 
yet  lingered.  "Get  out  of  here!"  the  soldiers  ordered.  "Get  out  of 
here!  We're  going  to  burn  this  damned  building  down!" 

A  detail  of  the  Union  Light  Guard  cleared  and  patrolled  Tenth 
Street  between  E  and  F  and  remained  during  the  night.  Sergeant 
Stimmel,  wakened  from  a  heavy  sleep,  felt  that  this  must  be  an 
awful  nightmare— that  he  could  not  really  be  on  duty.  Word  flew 
about  that  Secretary  Seward  and  Frederick  Seward  had  also  been 
wounded,  perhaps  mortally,  by  a  man  who  somehow  had  forced 
his  way  into  the  Seward  house  on  Lafayette  Square.  He  was  said  to 
have  been  one  Boyle,  notorious  desperado  and  guerrillero;   or 


184  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Sattuck,  a  well-known  Maryland  rebel;  or  a  ruffian  named 
Thomas;  or  the  dark  bravo  who  had  shot  the  President.  At  the 
headquarters  of  the  Metropolitan  Police,  483  Tenth  Street,  entry 
was  made  that  he  was  "supposed  to  be  John  Serratt  [sic].**  "What 
news  of  Stanton?"  was  a  common  question.  "Have  they  got  him, 
too?"  Could  it  be,  men  wondered,  that  Southern  emissaries  in 
Washington  had  planned  this  thing— that  paroled  Confederate 
soldiers  and  disloyal  civilians  would  at  a  signal  endeavor  to  seize 
the  government?  Couriers  dashed  hither  and  yon  through  the 
muddy  streets.21 

Having  filed  what  he  supposed  would  be  the  night's  last  dis- 
patch, Lawrence  Gobright,  correspondent  of  the  Associated  Press, 
was  sitting  in  his  office  at  the  Metropolitan  Hotel  when  in  rushed 
a  gentleman  who  had  been  present  at  Ford's  and  who  gave  him 
an  account  of  what  had  happened  there.  Holding  this  gentleman 
firmly  as  a  news-source  too  valuable  to  lose,  Gobright  sallied 
forth.  He  went  to  the  telegraph  office,  sent  a  brief  "special"  with 
promise  of  further  details  soon,  visited  the  theater,  ranged  about 
town,  gleaned  little  but  an  impression  of  chaos  and  alarm.  Every- 
where was  dread  of  an  extensive  conspiracy,  of  some  further 
stroke. 

Thousands  in  Washington  sat  up  all  night.  "There  were  rooms 
waiting  for  us,"  wrote  Julia  Chapman,  "but  it  seemed  safer  to  be 
together."  So  far  as  Gobright  was  able  to  discover,  it  was  not  then 
known  with  certainty  who  had  shot  the  President.  Some  appeared 
sure  it  was  John  Booth,  but  others  said  that  they  knew  John  Booth 
and  that  the  dark  man  had  no  more  than  a  superficial  resemblance 
to  him.  In  Lieutenant  Crawford's  opinion  he  had  "very  strongly 
resembled  the  Booths"— but  Crawford  ventured  nothing  less  in- 
definite than  that.  Rumor  was  persistent  that  it  had  been  Edwin 
Booth.  Unconvinced  in  his  own  mind,  Gobright  waited  until 
morning  should  bring  something  official.22 

M  Testimony  of  George  D.  Mudd  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  New  York  Tribune,  Apr. 
17,  1865;  p.  l.  New  York  Herald,  Apr.  19;  p.  1.  Photostatic  copy  of  police  blotter, 
Lincoln  Museum.  The  National  Republican  of  Mar.  3  had  queried  the  desirability 
of  having  ''so  large  a  number  of  men,  who  until  recently  have  been  aiding  the 
leaders  of  the  rebellion,  let  loose  in  the  community." 

22  Gobright,  "Recollections,"  pp.  348-354.  Argument  of  General  Ewing  in  the  case 
of  Doctor  Mudd,  Conspiracy  Trial.  Testimony  of  John  T.  Ford,  Conspiracy  Trial. 
M.  B.  Field,  "Memories  of  Many  Men,"  p.  328. 


PANDEMONIUM  185 

Whoever  he  might  have  been,  some  thought  the  murderer  was 
lurking  in  the  city.  Lincoln  had  been  shot,  it  was  alleged,  either 
in  the  breast  or  just  back  of  the  temporal  bone.  After  the  Presi- 
dent had  been  carried  from  the  box,  many  persons  had  entered  it 
out  of  curiosity  and  looked  around.  One  man  had  picked  from  the 
floor  a  "derringer"  pistol  six  inches  long  and  weighing  a  half- 
pound— a  weapon  that  might  easily  fit  into  a  man's  pocket  or  a 
lady's  reticule.  On  the  butt  was  the  lettering  deringer,  philad.— 
and  Deringer  (from  the  name  of  the  maker)  is  the  correct  spelling, 
found  in  various  works  on  small  arms.23  The  finder,  William  F. 
Kent,  handed  the  pistol  to  Gobright,  who  turned  it  over  to  Super- 
intendent Richards.24  Across  the  street,  in  the  house  of  the  tailor 
Petersen,  surgeons  were  probing  for  the  bullet. 

All  night  long  Sergeant  Stimmel,  not  yet  twenty-three,  gradu- 
ally realizing  that  he  was  truly  awake,  rode  slowly  up  and  down  in 
front  of  the  Petersen  house.  All  night  the  vigil  was  kept  there, 
with  comings  and  goings  but  no  sign  of  hope.  Gideon  Welles, 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  who  had  been  there  since  eleven  o'clock, 
stepped  outside  for  a  walk  in  the  open  air.  Every  few  rods,  knots 
of  people,  distressed  and  alarmed,  had  collected,  and  the  white- 
bearded  Secretary  was  constantly  beset  by  their  inquiries.  Before 
he  had  returned,  a  little  after  six  o'clock,  a  cold  rain  began  to  fall 
—a  rain  such  as  fell  at  Springfield  when  Lincoln  bade  farewell  to 
his  neighbors  with  "I  now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether 
ever  I  may  return."  A  special  dispatch  to  the  New  York  Tribune 
said:  "The  President  expired  at  a  quarter  to  twelve."  It  was  one 
of  a  host  of  rumors. 

Relieved  from  duty  about  seven  o'clock,  Sergeant  Stimmel  went 
to  breakfast.  As  he  lay  asleep,  that  cheerless  morning,  the  bells 
of  Washington  were  tolling.25 

23  A.  C.  Gould,  "Modern  American  Pistols  and  Revolvers,"  pp.  26-30.  C.  W. 
Sawyer,  "United  States  Single  Shot  Martial  Pistols,"  p.  33. 

2<Surratt  Trial,  vol.  i,  p.  123. 

25  See  further:  Surratt  Trial,  vol.  i,  pp.  125-127.  Princeton  Alumni  Weekly,  Feb.  7, 
1917;  p.  407.  Washington  Star,  Apr.  14,  1903;  p.  2.  Leslie's  Weekly,  Mar.  26,  1908; 
p.  302.  North  Dakota  Historical  Quarterly,  Jan.  1927;  pp.  31-32. 


Nine 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT 


THE  wounded  President  had  been  borne  up  the  curving  steps 
of  Petersen's  house  to  the  second  floor,  and  through  the  hall  to  a 
room  in  an  extension  at  the  back— a  small  room  measuring  seven- 
teen feet  by  nine  and  a  half.  Here  a  low  walnut  bedstead  was 
drawn  out  from  the  wall  and  Lincoln  was  placed  on  it— diagonally, 
because  of  his  height.  At  the  left  of  the  hallway  as  one  entered 
were  front  and  back  parlors,  with  folding  doors  between  them. 
In  the  back  parlor  Stanton  established  himself;  and  in  Washing- 
ton that  night  there  seems  to  have  been  no  cooler  head  than  his. 
Aided  by  Chief  Justice  David  Cartter  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  District,  he  started  in  to  take  depositions  regarding  the 
murder. 

Longhand  was  found  too  slow  for  the  purpose,  and  Corp.  James 
Tanner  was  summoned  from  an  adjoining  house.  Tanner,  who 
had  lost  both  legs  in  the  war  and  become  an  employee  in  the  ord- 
nance bureau  of  the  War  Department,  was  an  accomplished 
shorthand  writer.  It  was  about  midnight  when  he  sat  down  at  a 
table  with  Stanton  and  Cartter,  and  his  work  was  frequently  in- 
terrupted as  reports  were  delivered  or  when  the  Secretary  halted 
the  testimony  to  issue  orders.  Though  the  folding  doors  were 
closed,  the  moans  and  sobs  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  could  be  heard 
plainly  from  the  front  room.  In  rare  moments  of  silence  the  Presi- 
dent's labored  breathing  sounded  through  the  hall,  rising  and 
falling  like  an  aeolian  harp— in  Sumner's  phrase,  "almost  like 
melody." 

Occasionally  Stanton  would  go  for  a  few  moments  to  Lincoln's 
bedside.  Once  when  he  came  back  and  took  his  seat,  Tanner 

186 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  187 

looked  up  at  him  with  unspoken  question,  and  marked  the  choke 
in  the  throat— the  slow,  forced  answer,  "There  is  no  hope."  "He 
had  impressed  me  through  those  awful  hours  as  being  a  man  of 
steel,"  Tanner  afterward  wrote,  "but  I  knew  then  that  he  was 
dangerously  near  a  convulsive  breakdown."  r 

Assistant  Secretary  Charles  A.  Dana  discovered  his  chief  "in  full 
activity."  Dana,  who  afterward  became  nationally  known  as  editor 
of  the  New  York  Sun,  declared  in  1896  that  he  "never  knew  a  man 
who  could  do  so  much  work  in  a  given  time"  as  Stanton  did. 

"Sit  down  here,"  Stanton  said  to  Dana  that  night.  "I  want  you." 

Then  he  began,  Dana  related,  "and  dictated  orders  one  after 
another,  which  I  wrote  out  and  sent  swiftly  to  the  telegraph.  All 
those  orders  were  designed  to  keep  the  business  of  the  government 
in  full  motion  till  the  crisis  should  be  over.  It  was  perhaps  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  before  he  said,  'That's  enough.  Now  you 
can  go  home.'  "  2 

A  midnight  dispatch  from  Maj.  Gen.  M.  C.  Meigs  (Quarter- 
master-General) to  Gen.  Christopher  Augur,  commanding  the 
military  district  of  Washington  and  the  22nd  army  corps,  said 
that  the  Secretary  ordered  that  "troops  turn  out;  the  guards  be 
doubled;  the  forts  be  alert;  guns  manned;  special  vigilance  and 
guard  about  the  Capitol  Prison."  3  There  were  Confederates  and 
Confederate  sympathizers  in  the  Old  Capitol.  During  a  portion 
of  the  night,  Augur  was  at  the  Petersen  house  in  conference  with 
the  Secretary.  Four  men  remained  on  duty  all  night  in  the  tele- 
graph office  of  the  War  Department,  and  relays  of  mounted  mes- 
sengers conveyed  Stanton's  bulletins  and  instructions.  We  have 
learned  something  about  wartime  Washington  and  can  realize 
that  it  lacked  not  only  such  facilities  as  telephones,  radios,  and 
teletype  machines  but  even  multiplex  telegraphy  or  the  bicycle. 
Hence  we  shall  not  be  beguiled  into  judging  by  artificial  and  im- 
possible standards  the  labors  of  Stanton  and  his  aides  in  those 
first  hours  of  shock. 

As  Justice  Cartter  propounded  questions  to  the  witnesses,  Tan- 
ner noted  down  the  answers  in  Standard  phonography.  Various 

1  "The  Passing  of  Lincoln"   (Remarks  of  Hon.  James  A.  Freer);  pp.  5-6. 

2  "Lincoln  and  His  Cabinet";  pp.  26,  68-69. 

3  Official  Records    ("The  War  of  the  Rebellion"),  I,  vol.  xlvi,  pt.  3;  p.  756. 


188  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

persons  were  brought  in  who  had  been  either  at  Ford's  or  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Seward's  house  on  Lafayette  Square.  Under  pre- 
text of  delivering  medicine  for  Secretary  Seward  from  Doctor 
Verdi,  a  man  in  a  light  overcoat  had  gained  entrance  to  the  house. 
Having  fractured  Frederick  Seward's  skull,  he  forced  his  way  into 
the  bedroom  of  the  Secretary,  whom  he  twice  stabbed  in  the  neck. 
The  Secretary's  life  was  saved  by  the  steel  frame  around  his  broken 
jaw.  After  wounding  Frederick's  brother,  Maj.  A.  H.  Seward,  the 
man  rushed  downstairs,  mounted  a  horse,  and  escaped  into  Ver- 
mont Avenue. 

Tanner  wrote  to  his  friend  Walch  (April  17th)  that  through 
the  testimony  of  all  who  had  been  at  the  theater  ran  "an  under- 
tone of  horror"  which  kept  them  from  identifying  the  dark  man 
explicitly  with  John  Booth.  Among  them  was  Harry  Hawk,  the 
Asa  Trenchard  of  "Our  American  Cousin,"  who  already  had 
given  evidence  at  police  headquarters  and  been  put  under  bond 
to  appear  at  ten  o'clock  Saturday  morning. 

"To  the  best  of  my  belief,"  Hawk  said,  "it  was  Mr.  John  Wilkes 
Booth— but  I  will  not  be  positive." 

Hawk  knew  well  enough  it  was  John,  as  he  admitted  in  a  letter 
written  on  April  16th.4  But  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  be  the 
accuser.  Nor,  although  he  had  walked  about  the  streets  amid  the 
wild  excitement,  could  he  quite  make  this  thing  seem  true.  His 
scene  had  been  ruined.  ".  .  .  And  to  think,"  he  wrote,  "of  such  a 
sorrowful  ending!"  They  led  him  to  the  door  of  the  little  room 
and  asked  him  whether  he  recognized  the  unconscious  Lincoln  as 
the  man  who  had  been  shot.5 

Tanner  commenced  transcribing  his  notes  into  longhand.  He 
saw  Mrs.  Lincoln,  supported  by  Miss  Harris,  pass  through  the 
hallway  toward  the  front  parlor  and  heard  her  moan,  "O  my  God, 
and  have  I  given  my  husband  to  die!"  (".  .  .  I  tell  you,"  he  wrote 
Walch,  "I  never  heard  so  much  agony  in  so  few  words.")  He 
wrote  on  and  on;  could  not  believe  it  when  his  watch  said  four- 
thirty;  finished  at  a  quarter  to  seven.  Then  he  went  into  the  little 
room,  where  some  twenty  persons  were  grouped  about  the  bed. 

4  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  Apr.  22;  p.  2. 

6  American  Historical  Review,  Apr.  1924;  pp.  514-517.  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  Apr. 
22,  1865;  p.  2.  Boston  Herald,  Apr.  11,  1897;  P-  2&- 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  189 

He  saw  Robert  Lincoln  with  head  bowed  on  the  shoulder  of 
Charles  Sumner— Surgeon-General  Barnes  with  hand  upon  Lin- 
coln's failing  pulse,  ear  bent  at  intervals  to  catch  the  lessening 
heartbeat— Stanton  with  muscles  twitching  and  gaze  fixed  in- 
tently on  that  worn  face  across  which  was  settling  a  "look  of 
unspeakable  peace."  At  length  the  measured  breathing  grew 
slowly  fainter  and  the  sound  of  it  ended,  as  if  a  harpist  laid 

...  his  open  palm 
Upon  his  harp,  to  deaden  its  vibrations. 

By  the  official  record  of  Dr.  Ezra  W.  Abbott  the  time  was  seven 
twenty-two  on  the  morning  of  April  15th. 

The  Surgeon-General  gently  folded  Lincoln's  arm  over  the  still 
breast.  "Our  Father  and  Our  God,"  said  a  voice  lifted  in  prayer. 
It  was  the  voice  of  the  Rev.  Phineas  Gurley,  pastor  of  the  New 
York  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church.  Tanner  snatched  out  note- 
book and  pencil— the  point  of  the  pencil  caught  in  his  coat  and 
broke.  Sobs  were  audible.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Gurley  said  "Amen,"  and 
made  pause.  Then  Stanton  quietly  summed  up  the  moment  in 
enduring  words— words  of  prescience,  words  such  as  the  mouth 
speaks  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart:  "Now  he  belongs  to 
the  ages." 

Of  course  the  mythmakers  have  implied  that  Stanton  uttered 
nothing  of  the  kind;  but  that  is  how  it  was  recorded  by  John  Hay, 
a  young  man  with  rather  a  quick  ear  for  turns  of  speech.  Corporal 
Tanner  gives  "He  belongs  to  the  ages  now";  Dr.  Charles  Taft, 
"He  now  belongs  to  the  Ages."  Both  of  these  men  were  present, 
as  was  Hay.  The  Marquis  de  Chambrun  has  "He  is  a  man  for  the 
ages,"  and  this  he  may  have  obtained  from  his  close  friend  Charles 
Sumner,  who  was  present.6  "He  now  belongs  to  the  ages"  is  how 
Frank  Flower  puts  it  in  his  biography  of  Stanton,  thus  substan- 
tially agreeing  with  Taft.  Possibly  the  remembered  form— the 
"lapidary  style,"  as  Sam  Johnson  might  have  said— is  Hay's;  but  it 
is  clear  that  Stanton  did  say  something  like  this.  That  he  may  also 
have  said  other  things  is  beside  the  mark. 

It  has  likewise  been  insinuated  that  Stanton,  for  no  clearly 
defined  reason,  tried  to  keep  John  Booth's  name  out  of  Saturday 

'"Personal  Recollections  of  Mr.  Lincoln,"  Scribner's  Magazine,  Jan.  1893;  p.  38. 


igo  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

morning's  papers.  If  he  did,  he  signally  failed.  Before  twelve- 
fifteen  the  New  York  World  had  received  this  dispatch  from  Wash- 
ington: 

Everybody  who  knows  the  man,  say  [sic]  that  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  the 
actor,  is  the  assassin.  The  evidence  is  concurrent  at  this  late  excited 
hour  to  that  effect. 

The  thirteenth  special  dispatch  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  dated 
at  Washington  on  Friday,  said:  ''There  is  one  universal  acclaim 
of  accusation  resting  upon  J.  Wilkes  Booth  as  the  assassin."  The 
fourteenth  (one-thirty,  Saturday  morning)  was:  "The  mass  of 
evidence  to-night  is  that  J.  Wilkes  Booth  committed  the  crime." 
In  the  New  York  Herald  appeared  one  Washington  dispatch  say- 
ing that  "Popular  report  points  to  a  somewhat  celebrated  actor 
of  known  secession  proclivities  as  the  assassin"  .  .  .  and  another 
to  the  effect  that  Laura  Keene  and  the  orchestra  leader  (William 
Withers)  had  recognized  the  man  as  "J.  Wilkes  Booth,  the  actor." 
Washington's  National  Intelligencer  stated  in  its  third  Saturday 
edition: 

Developments  have  rendered  it  certain  that  the  hand  which  deprived 
our  President  of  life  was  that  of  JOHN  WILKES  BOOTH,  an  actor. 

In  its  second  edition  the  Morning  Chronicle  proclaimed  John 
Booth  as  the  murderer.  By  Sunday  morning  the  name  had  trav- 
ersed a  continent,  for  readers  of  that  day's  Daily  Alta  California 
encountered,  along  with  the  shocking  news  of  the  murder,  the 
announcement:  "The  murderer  of  the  President  was  J.  Wilkes 
Booth."  Californians  had  known,  esteemed,  and  applauded  three 
of  the  Booth  family.  (While  General  Sherman  was  discussing 
with  Gen.  J.  E.  Johnston  the  terms  of  Johnston's  surrender,  it 
was  thought  best  to  withhold  the  tidings  from  the  armies.) 

Corporal  Tanner,  making  phonographic  notes  in  William  Pe- 
tersen's back  parlor,  impulsively  felt  that  in  fifteen  minutes  he 
"had  testimony  enough  down  to  hang  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin, 
higher  than  ever  Haman  hung."  This  in  spite  of  his  admission 
that  the  witnesses  shrank  from  positively  identifying  the  dark  man. 
In  the  light  of  evidence  now  available  regarding  that  night's  con- 
fusion and  uncertainty,  we  may  well  think  it  to  Stanton's  credit 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  191 

that  he  was  not  stampeded.  At  three  o'clock  Saturday  morning- 
only  four  and  a  half  hours  after  the  murder— his  official  bulletin 
to  General  Dix  in  New  York  read: 

Investigation  strongly  indicates  J.  Wilkes  Booth  as  the  assassin  of  the 
President.  Whether  it  was  the  same  or  a  different  person  that  attempted 
to  murder  Mr.  Seward  remains  in  doubt. 

Dix  was  to  transmit  this  to  the  press.  It  was  as  far  as  Stanton  then 
cared  to  go  publicly— and  it  was  quick  work.  The  whole  sugges- 
tion that  the  Secretary  of  War  was  particeps  criminis  in  the  accom- 
plishing of  Lincoln's  death,  and  that  he  hoped  to  make  it  possible 
for  Booth  to  escape  before  a  general  alarm  could  be  given,  is  as 
inapt  as  it  is  malicious. 

Tanner  went  back  to  his  room  to  write  out  for  Stanton  a  second 
longhand  copy.  In  a  little  while  he  heard  a  stir  beneath  his  window 
and,  on  looking  out,  he  saw  the  hearse  with  Lincoln's  body  move 
gloomily  through  the  rain  up  Tenth  Street  toward  F,  the  military 
escort  marching  with  arms  reversed.  It  was  the  real  beginning  of 
the  long  journey  that  Whitman  was  to  immortalize  in  "When 
Lilacs  Last  in  the  Dooryard  Bloom'd."  Involuntarily  Tanner's 
hand  went  to  his  forehead  in  salute. 

Sixty  years  later  the  same  Tanner,  meantime  twice  made 
commander-in-chief  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  re- 
marked that  never  did  he  feel  more  like  hitting  a  man  in  cold 
blood  than  when  "a  sprig  of  a  reporter"  said  to  him  with  a  smirk: 
"So  you  were  really  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  deathbed?  It  must  have  been 
an  interesting  occasion."  "I  certainly  would  have  smote  him," 
Tanner  protested,  "if  I  had  had  the  physical  ability." 

Gen.  W.  E.  Doster  stood  at  the  corner  of  Fifteenth  Street  and 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  as  the  hearse  passed  to  the  Executive  Man- 
sion, the  body  shrouded  with  a  white  sheet  and  a  flag.  "And  never 
before  or  since  have  I  heard  a  crowd  as  that  was,  composed  mostly 
of  negroes,  men  and  women,  utter  so  loud  and  piercing  a  wail 
as  these  mourners  uttered,  when  the  body  passed  close  to  them. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  whole  world  had  lost  a  dear,  personal  friend, 
whose  loss  was  not  to  be  repaired."  7 

7  "Lincoln  and  Episodes  of  the  Civil  War";  p.  36. 


192  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Men  wept  as  they  met  in  the  street.  One  of  Sergeant  Stimmel's 
comrades  of  the  Union  Light  Guard  encountered  another  cavalry- 
man, a  stranger  from  a  different  troop,  and  the  two  reined  in  their 
horses  and  spoke  of  the  events  of  the  night.  "It  probably  means 
more  to  me  than  it  does  to  you,"  the  stranger  said,  as  if  excusing 
his  tears.  "He  signed  an  order  that  saved  me  from  being  shot." 

As  the  night  had  worn  away,  evidence  pointed  ever  more  surely 
to  John  Booth  as  the  dark  man  of  the  theater.  Superintendent 
Richards  of  the  Metropolitan  Police  conducted  a  "preliminary 
examination"  at  headquarters.  "Several  persons  were  called  upon 
to  testify,"  said  the  Daily  Morning  Chronicle  of  April  15th,  "and 
the  evidence,  as  elicited  before  an  informal  tribunal,  and  not 
under  oath,  was  conclusive  to  this  point:  the  murderer  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  was  John  Wilkes  Booth."  Among  those  whose  names 
were  entered  in  the  "incidental  book"  during  the  night  were 
J.  B.  Stewart  and  J.  S.  Knox,  who  had  started  after  the  murderer; 
the  actors  Hawk  and  DeBonay;  Maddox,  the  theater's  property 
man;  and  John  Fletcher,  foreman  of  Thompson  Nailor's  livery 
stable   (299  E  Street,  north). 

Men  from  the  War  Department  went  to  Booth's  room  at  the 
National  Hotel.  Among  the  things  they  found  there  were  a  pair 
of  cassimere  trousers,  a  pair  of  embroidered  slippers,  a  half-filled 
bottle  of  hair  oil,  some  killikinick  tobacco,  and  a  trunk.  Papers 
taken  from  the  trunk  included  a  cipher  code  that  was  discovered 
to  be  identical  with  one  picked  up  by  Assistant  Secretary  Dana  at 
Richmond  on  April  6th  in  the  abandoned  suite  of  J.  P.  Benjamin, 
Confederate  Secretary  of  State.  Among  the  correspondence  Booth 
had  left  behind  was  Sam  Arnold's  letter  of  March  27th,  from 
Hookstown,  regarding  the  abduction  plot.  All  this  material  was 
turned  over  to  the  office  of  Col.  Prentiss  Ingraham,  provost  mar- 
shal-general of  the  defenses  north  of  the  Potomac. 

Sam  Arnold  was  not  unknown  to  Maj.  H.  B.  Smith,  chief  of  de- 
tectives and  assistant  provost  marshal-general  of  the  Middle  De- 
partment, with  office  in  Baltimore.  As  soon  as  the  authorities  in 
Washington  wanted  Arnold,  Major  Smith  and  one  of  his  opera- 
tives went  out  to  Hookstown,  which  they  reached  about  noon  of 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  193 

the  16th.  There  they  learned  that  Arnold  had  gone  to  Old  Point 
—and  the  remainder  was  simple.  In  Smith's  office  a  register  was 
kept  of  all  to  whom  passes  for  Old  Point  were  issued.  Arnold  was 
on  the  register,  vouched  for  by  "Wickey"  Wharton,  sutler  at  Old 
Point.  A  dispatch  was  sent  to  Wharton,  asking  where  Arnold  was. 
"A  clerk  in  my  employ,"  Wharton  replied.  Arnold  was  arrested, 
reached  Baltimore  by  the  Bay  Line  steamer  on  April  18th,  and 
was  immediately  delivered  in  Washington  by  Smith  and  Officer 
Babcock.  McPhail,  the  civil  provost  marshal  of  Maryland  (having 
to  do  with  enrolments  and  drafts,  and  independent  of  the  regular 
military  service),  had  telegraphed  to  Assistant  Secretary  Dana  at 
two-forty  on  the  16th  for  orders  to  arrest  Arnold,  but  by  that  time 
Smith  had  acted.8 

Such  is  the  real  story  of  the  procedure  in  Arnold's  case,  about 
which  some  queries  have  been  raised.  It  is  of  peculiar  interest  to 
us  for  two  reasons.  It  shows  how  from  the  beginning  the  loosely 
co-ordinated  agencies  then  existing  were  prone  to  work  independ- 
ently of  one  another— sometimes  influenced,  no  doubt,  by  lively 
expectations  of  tangible  reward.  Also  it  reveals  the  complete  lack 
of  any  official  distinction  between  the  abduction  plot  and  the 
affair  of  the  murder.  This  undiscriminative  bias  was  to  result  in 
grave  injustice  to  individuals,  and  it  promoted  confusion  in  the 
public  mind. 

If  by  daylight  of  the  15th  the  guilt  of  John  Booth  was  reasonably 
sure,  nevertheless  his  whereabouts  remained  uncertain.  There 
were  several  ways  by  which  such  a  fugitive  might  conceivably  get 
out  of  Washington:  the  Baltimore  turnpike;  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  Railroad,  to  Baltimore  and  northward;  the  Long  Bridge, 
from  the  foot  of  Maryland  Avenue  to  Alexander's  Island  on  the 
Virginia  shore;  the  Navy  Yard  bridge,  crossing  the  Eastern  Branch 
from  Eleventh  Street  (east)  to  Uniontown;  Benning's  bridge, 
spanning  the  Eastern  Branch  a  little  higher  up;  the  Aqueduct 
bridge  from  Georgetown  to  the  Virginia  side,  connecting  with 
roads  leading  toward  Leesburg  and  Richmond;  the  ferry  to  Alex- 
andria. Wartime  vigilance  at  bridgeheads  and  other  points  had 
been  greatly  relaxed.  On  the  14th  two  gentlemen  had  importuned 

"Smith,  "Between  the  Lines";  pp.  292-294. 


194  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Lincoln  for  a  pass  to  Richmond  and  he  had  written  upon  a  card:9 


No  pass  is  necessary  now  to  au- 
thorize any  one  to  go  to  &  return 
from  Petersburg  Sc  Richmond — 
People  go  &  return  just  as  they 
did  before  the  war. 

A.  Lincoln 


As  early  as  the  ist  the  Intelligencer  had  given  notice: 

NO  PASSES  REQUIRED.— On  and  after  to-day,  no  more  passes  will 
be  required  to  visit  Alexandria. 

Tanner  informs  us  that  Stanton's  repeated  direction  from  Pe- 
tersen's was:  "Guard  the  Potomac  from  the  city  down.  He  [Booth] 
will  try  to  get  south."  10  But  many  suspected— and  quite  naturally 
—that  Booth  might  have  headed  for  Baltimore;  so  at  three  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  the  15th  Stanton  prepared  this  dispatch  to 
Gen.  William  W.  Norris,  commanding  the  Baltimore  district: 

Make  immediate  arrangements  for  guarding  thoroughly  every  avenue 
leading  into  Baltimore,  and  if  possible  arrest  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  the 
murderer  of  President  Lincoln.11 

(A  sidelight  upon  the  conditions  under  which  Stanton  worked  is 
afforded  by  the  fact  that  although  this  dispatch  was  marked  to  be 
rushed,  it  was  not  put  on  the  wire  until  three  fifty-five.) 

Chief  Young  of  New  York's  detective  force,  with  officers  Elder, 
Kelso,  and  Radford,  took  the  first  train  to  Washington  on  Satur- 
day morning  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the  capture.  Before  they 
could  reach  there,  a  dispatch  from  the  capital  announced  that  the 
murderer  had  been  arrested  north  of  the  city.12  Late  that  afternoon 
the  National  Republican  of  Washington  said: 

BOOTH  CAPTURED. 

We  learn  that  Booth,  the  supposed  assassin  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  has 
been  captured,  and  has  been  transferred  to  absolutely  safe  quarters. 

9  Original  in  the  Lincoln  Museum,  Washington. 

10  "The  Passing  of  Lincoln";  p.  5. 

11  Official  Records,  I,  vol.  xlvi,  pt.  3;  p.  775. 

12  Commercial  Advertiser,  Apr.  15;  1st  ed.  (1:30  p.m.),  p.  1 — 2nd  ed.  (2  p.m.),  p.  3. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  195 

It  was  false,  but  no  more  so  than  scores  of  flying  reports,  mis- 
statements, and  innuendoes.  A  fictional  accretion  had  begun  to 
collect,  and  its  growth  has  never  ceased.  To  the  canards  of  news- 
mongers, the  errors  of  the  misinformed,  the  inventions  of  parti- 
sans, the  perjuries  of  lying  witnesses,  have  been  added  the  delu- 
sions of  cranks  and  the  impostures  of  humbugs.  So  far  as  lapse  of 
time  and  defects  of  evidence  permit,  we  must  try  to  recover  some- 
thing of  the  truth— or  at  the  least,  something  of  the  probabilities. 

"Evidently  conspirators  are  among  us!"  the  Intelligencer  edi- 
torially proclaimed.  "To  what  extent  does  the  conspiracy  exist? 
This  is  a  terrible  question!  We  can  only  advise  the  utmost  vigi- 
lance and  the  most  prompt  measures  by  the  authorities.  We  can 
only  pray  God  to  shield  us,  His  unworthy  people,  from  further 
calamities  like  these!" 

Writing  to  his  brother,  Dr.  George  Todd,  surgeon  of  the  Mon- 
tauk,  said: 

Today  all  the  city  is  in  mourning,  nearly  every  house  being  in  black 
and  I  have  not  seen  a  smile.  No  business,  and  many  a  strong  man  I 
have  seen  in  tears.13 

Solomon  Faunce,  a  governmental  clerk,  wrote  home: 

. .  .  You  can  form  no  idea  of  the  excitement  that  exists  on  the  street. 
We  were  dismissed  at  10  o'clock  this  morning — in  fact  we  couldn't 
have  done  anything  if  we  had  undertaken  it.  I  don't  think  the  nation 
has  had  such  a  gloomy  day  during  its  existence.  Our  stores,  dwelling- 
houses,  and  public  buildings  are  all  draped  in  mourning.  The  shock 
is  terrible.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the  South  thought  that  they  were  doing  them- 
selves some  good  in  this  killing  Mr.  Lincoln  but  I  tell  you  that  as  soon 
as  Andrew  Johnson  the  Vice-President  comes  in  they  will  find  their 
mistake.  For  he  goes  in  for  hanging  every  son  of  them.  And  Bully  for 
him!  That's  what  I  say,  and  as  for  Booth,  tear  him  to  pieces  M 

Major  Gleason,  a  clerk  with  Louis  Weichmann  in  the  office  of 
the  Commissary-General  of  Prisoners,  went  early  to  the  office, 
"where  I  found  confusion,  no  work  doing,  and  all  discussing  the 
calamity."  During  the  night  he  had  visited  General  Augur's  head- 
quarters in  company  with  Lieut.  Joshua  Sharp,  an  assistant  pro- 

13  From  the  copy  in  the  possession  of  the  State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin. 
"From  the  original  in  the  McLellan  Collection,  Brown  University. 


196  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

vost  marshal  on  Augur's  staff.  There,  too,  they  had  discovered 
"everybody  excited  and  confusion  reigning."  "If  there  was  any 
cool-headed  man  there,"  Gleason  wrote,  "he  was  not  in  sight— nor 
is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  the  shock  was  so  great  the  mind  was  dazed 
and  numb."  "Such  a  night  of  horror,"  that  morning's  Intelligencer 
declared,  "has  seldom  darkened  any  community.  The  indefinite 
dread  which  conspiracy  inspires  seized  on  the  public  mind,  and 
suspicion,  apprehension,  and  agony  pervaded  the  people." 

A  dispatch  of  the  14th  to  the  Tribune  from  its  Washington 
bureau  read:  "Ten  thousand  rumors  are  afloat,  and  the  most  in- 
tense and  painful  excitement  pervades  the  city."  That  "Col. 
Parker  of  Gen.  Grant's  staff"  was  the  Lincolns'  guest  in  the  box; 
that  the  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  did  not  leave  for  the  theater 
until  8:45  o'clock;  that  Lincoln  had  a  "ball-hole  in  his  forehead'*; 
and  that  there  was  little  hope  of  Seward's  recovery  (although 
neither  Doctor  Verdi  nor  Surgeon-General  Barnes,  both  of  whom 
were  at  once  summoned,  had  even  implied  such  a  thing)— these 
were  among  the  unverified  reports  which  the  same  bureau  tele- 
graphed to  New  York.  They  were  but  precursors  of  the  vast  med- 
ley of  error  that  was  to  issue  from  Washington  for  months  to  come. 

Measures  had  been  taken  by  the  local  authorities  to  preserve 
the  outward  semblance  of  public  order.  Superintendent  Richards 
had  promptly  telegraphed  to  every  precinct  and  all  streets  were 
patrolled.  At  the  Superintendent's  request  General  Augur  fur- 
nished mounts  for  the  police.  The  Kirkwood  House,  where  Vice- 
President  Johnson  had  room  68,  had  been  placed  under  special 
guard.  Men  of  the  Veteran  Reserve  Corps,  commanded  by  Major 
Steckner,  took  charge  of  the  theater,  using  the  lounging  room  for  a 
dormitory.  Alarmed  by  threats  to  fire  the  building,  Edman  Span- 
gler,  who  usually  bunked  in  the  theater  and  rarely  slept  in  a  bed, 
made  a  shakedown  in  the  carpenter's  shop  in  the  four-story  annex. 
He  and  other  employees  now  had  to  carry  military  passes  to  go  in 
and  out.  Many  persons  were  wildly  convinced  that  the  theater 
was  in  some  way  bound  up  with  the  murder  and  that  Lincoln  had 
been  invited  with  this  purpose  in  view. 

At  eleven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  15th,  in  his  room  at 
the  Kirkwood,  Andrew  Johnson  was  sworn  in  as  President  of  the 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  197 

United  States  by  Chief  Justice  Chase.  In  his  brief  inaugural  ad- 
dress he  said: 

.  .  .  The  only  assurance  I  can  now  give  of  the  future  is  reference  to 
the  past.  The  course  which  I  have  taken  in  the  past  in  connection  with 
this  rebellion  must  be  regarded  as  a  guaranty  of  the  future.  .  .  .  The 
best  energies  of  my  life  have  been  spent  in  endeavoring  to  establish  and 
perpetuate  the  principles  of  free  government,  and  I  believe  that  the 
Government  in  passing  through  its  present  perils  will  settle  down  upon 
principles  consonant  with  popular  rights  more  permanent  and  endur- 
ing than  heretofore.  ...  I  feel  that  in  the  end  the  Government  will 
triumph  and  that  these  great  principles  will  be  permanently  estab- 
lished.15 

At  twelve,  Johnson  attended  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  and,  so 
far  as  the  fastidious  Gideon  Welles  could  observe,  "deported 
himself  admirably."  16  It  is,  in  passing,  worthy  of  notice  that  Lin- 
coln, though  styled  "Old  Abe"  (sometimes  affectionately  and 
sometimes  not)  and  though  referred  to  by  himself  in  1861  as  al- 
ready "an  old  man,"  had  just  entered  his  fifty-sixth  year  in  Febru- 
ary 1865  and  thus  was  actually  younger  than  Johnson,  who  had 
been  born  in  December  1808. 

In  the  dismal  light  of  that  rainy  Saturday  morning,  Mary  Lin- 
coln was  led  from  the  front  parlor  of  Petersen's  to  her  carriage. 
Her  gaze  fell  upon  the  theater  she  had  entered  so  happily  less 
than  twelve  hours  before. 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  "that  dreadful  house— that  dreadful  house!" 

Shut  from  the  world,  sunk  in  a  frantic  and  despairing  grief,  she 
stayed  on  for  a  time  in  the  Executive  Mansion  that  to  her  had 
never  been  a  home.  In  the  stress  and  clamor  of  ensuing  days  she 
was  well-nigh  forgotten. 

Trains  between  Washington  and  Baltimore  were  searched.  On 
the  night  of  the  15th,  troops  surrounded  the  Booth  homestead  at 
Belair,  which  had  been  rented  to  a  Baltimore  family  named  King. 
Dwelling  and  farm  buildings  were  thoroughly  explored. 

"John  Booth  is  not  here,"  said  Mrs.  King,  vexed  at  the  abrupt 

""Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,"  vol.  vi,  p.  305. 
16  "Diary,"  vol.  ii,  p.  289. 


1 98  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

intrusion.  "But  if  he  were,  you  would  have  found  him  an  honored 
guest." 

"Madam,"  was  the  answer,  "it  is  well  for  you  that  we  have  not 
found  him  here."  17 

The  Daily  Chronicle  of  the  15th  stated: 

As  it  is  suspected  that  this  conspiracy  originated  in  Maryland,  the 
telegraph  flashed  the  mournful  news  to  Baltimore,  and  all  the  cavalry 
was  immediately  put  upon  active  duty.  Every  road  was  picketed,  and 
every  precaution  taken  to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  assassin.18 

The  New  York  Herald  of  April  16th  carried  this  Washington 
dispatch  of  the  previous  afternoon  (twelve-thirty): 

John  Wilkes  Booth,  towards  whom  the  evidence  conclusively  points 
as  the  assassin  of  the  President,  has  been  arrested  near  Baltimore,  and 
will  be  placed  for  safe  keeping  on  board  a  Monitor  at  the  Navy  Yard 
here,  which  will  be  anchored  in  the  stream. 

The  indignation  of  the  people  is  so  intense  that  an  attempt  to  con- 
fine him  in  any  prison  would  lead  to  a  sanguinary  conflict  between  the 
people  and  the  guard. 

Ten  minutes  before  this  dispatch  had  been  filed,  Gen.  James  A. 
Hardie  had  telegraphed  from  Washington  to  the  agent  of  the 
military  railroad,  Alexandria: 

It  is  reported  that  the  assassin  of  the  President  has  gone  out  hence  to 
Alexandria,  thence  on  train  to  Fairfax.  Stop  all  trains  in  that  direc- 
tion. .  .  . 

On  the  same  day  (the  15th)  Gen.  W.  L.  Jeffers,  signing  as  Acting 
Provost  Marshal-General,  telegraphed  that  it  was  believed  the 
assassins  of  the  President  and  Secretary  Seward  were  attempting 
to  escape  to  Canada.  His  instructions  accordingly  were  that  all 
persons  seeking  to  cross  into  Canada  be  thoroughly  examined  and 
any  deemed  suspicious  be  arrested. 

Marshal  McPhail,  apparently  on  his  own  initiative,  was  sending 
word  to  St.  Inigoes,  far  down  the  Potomac,  that  Booth  should  be 
looked  for  in  St.  Mary's  and  Calvert  Counties;  and  General  Augur, 
commander  of  the  Washington  district,  was  ordering  General 
Slough  at  Alexandria  to  send  a  squad  of  cavalry  down  toward  the 

17  E.  V.  Mahoney,  "Sketches  of  Tudor  Hall  and  the  Booth  Family";  p.  50. 

18  See  also  the  Commercial  Advertiser  (New  York),  Apr.  15. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  199 

Occoquan  River  to  intercept  anybody  crossing  the  upper  Potomac 
from  the  region  of  Piscataway  in  Lower  Maryland. 

On  the  night  of  the  14th  Major  Gleason,  fellow  clerk  with 
Louis  Weichmann  in  the  office  of  the  Commissary-General  of 
Prisoners,  went  into  a  small  room  in  which  members  of  the  staff 
were  consulting  at  Augur's  headquarters  and  recommended  that 
Weichmann  and  the  entire  Surratt  household  be  arrested.  "I  also 
asked,"  he  wrote,  "for  a  cavalry  squad  to  go  with  me  to  the  Sur- 
ratt place  in  Maryland,  as  I  thought  the  assassin  would  escape 
that  way."  But  they  said  he  "could  be  of  more  assistance  in  Wash- 
ington." 19 

Time  was  passing,  and  army  men  were  divided  in  councils;  but 
soldiers  like  Gleason,  knowing  that  Stanton  was  in  charge,  were 
convinced  that  everything  possible  would  be  done.  They  thought 
the  Secretary  arrogant,  churlish,  and  inhuman,  but  they  felt,  as 
Gleason  did,  that  "he  was  a  man  of  sound  judgment  as  well  as 
iron  will;  in  other  words  one  who  could  be  depended  on  in  a 
pinch."  They  knew  him  for  a  driver.  When  Halleck  had  wished 
three  months  for  moving  Hooker's  two  corps  from  Virginia  into 
Tennessee,  Stanton  said  fifteen  days.  "It  can't  be  done,"  Halleck 
told  him.  "It  can  be  done  and  by  the  will  of  God  it  shall  be  done," 
Stanton  countered,  thumping  the  desk;  and  it  was  done. 

Advised  by  Stanton  to  "search  and  patrol  the  roads  leading  from 
Washington,  particularly  in  the  direction  of  the  Occoquan," 
Augur  sent  a  detail  of  cavalry  to  Piscataway  in  Prince  George's 
County,  Lower  Maryland.  This  detail  was  commanded  by  Lieut. 
David  Dana,  provost  marshal  in  the  third  brigade  of  the  22nd 
army  corps  and  brother  to  Charles  A.  Dana,  Assistant  Secretary 
of  War.  Lieutenant  Dana  and  his  men  must  have  left  Washington 
at  a  very  early  hour  on  Saturday  morning,  for  they  reached  Pis- 
cataway at  seven  o'clock.  From  there  Dana  reported  that  arrange- 
ments had  been  made  which  would  render  it  impossible  for 
fugitives  to  cross  the  Potomac  at  that  point.  He  also  sent  a  mes- 
senger to  notify  the  small  cavalry  post  at  Chapel  Point,  below  Port 
Tobacco,  that  the  President  had  been  murdered. 

19  Magazine  of  History,  Feb.  1911;  p.  64. 


200  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

On  Saturday  a  variety  of  persons  began  to  take  up  the  chase 
into  Lower  Maryland.  Among  them  were  Superintendent  Rich- 
ards of  the  Metropolitan  Police;  Maj.  James  O'Beirne,  provost 
marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia;  Maj.  John  Waite  of  General 
Augur's  staff;  and  Col.  H.  H.  Wells,  provost  marshal  of  the  de- 
fenses south  of  the  Potomac.  (Provost  marshals  in  bewildering 
array  confront  us  on  every  hand.)  By  the  best  accounts,  1,400 
cavalrymen  were  scattered  over  this  area  to  patrol  the  wretched 
roads,  question  close-lipped  residents,  and  (dismounted)  scour 
the  marshy  tracts  that  fed  creeks  and  sluggish  rivers.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  Booth  might  perhaps  have  sought  temporary  refuge  in 
one  of  those  wastes  of  thicket,  quagmire,  and  black  water. 

Strangers  to  the  terrain,  men  of  the  Sixteenth  New  York  and 
Eighth  Illinois,  and  even  more  unwelcome  Negro  troops,  ranged 
the  largely  hostile  peninsula.  John  Young,  chief  of  New  York 
City's  detectives,  was  there  with  some  of  his  operatives.  Other 
sleuths  were  furnished  by  Major  O'Beirne;  by  Col.  H.  S.  Olcott, 
special  commissioner  of  the  War  Department,  later  a  founder  of 
the  Theosophical  Society;  and  by  Colonel  Ingraham,  who  lived 
to  write  six  hundred  paper-back  novels  but  none  so  thrilling  as 
the  true  story  of  the  pursuit  of  John  Booth. 

By  Monday  morning  (April  17th)  the  New  York  Herald  was 
saying: 

The  miscreants  who  assassinated  Mr.  Lincoln  and  attempted  the  life 
of  Secretary  Seward  are  still  at  large.  The  military  and  police  authori- 
ties of  Washington  and  all  over  the  country  are  actively  engaged  in 
attempts  to  effect  their  capture,  and  they  should  be  assisted  in  every 
possible  manner  by  every  citizen.  Let  each  man  resolve  himself  into  a 
special  detective  policeman,  sparing  no  vigilance  or  labor  until  these 
detested  wretches  are  hunted  down  and  secured  for  justice.  It  is  a  duty 
which  every  man  owes  to  his  conscience  and  his  country. 

Zealous  but  misguided  patriots  already  were  assuming  this  duty 
in  the  most  indiscriminate  fashion. 

Meanwhile,  Secretary  Stanton  had  ideas  of  his  own.  At  three- 
twenty  on  the  afternoon  of  Saturday,  April  15th,  this  telegram 
had  left  the  War  Department:  20 

20  Official  Records,  I,  vol.  xlvi,  pt.  3;  p.  783. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  201 

Col.  L.  C.  Baker,  New  York: 

Come  here  immediately  and  see  if  you  can  find  the  murderers  of  the 
President. 

Edwin  M.  Stanton, 

Secretary  of  War. 

During  that  Good  Friday  night  of  dismay  and  terror,  and  the 
days  and  nights  of  the  following  week,  all  sorts  of  fictions  began 
to  take  shape;  and  fictions  have  been  so  increasing  and  so  ramify- 
ing through  the  years  that  anyone  surveying  with  some  little  de- 
gree of  care  the  general  topic  of  Lincoln's  murder  would  easily 
become  satisfied  that  in  written  form  as  well  as  in  popular  tradi- 
tion the  erroneous  and  the  mendacious  have  in  bulk  considerably 
exceeded  the  accurate  and  the  true.  When  it  was  difficult  or  impos- 
sible to  arrive  at  the  truth,  the  probable  seems  generally  to  have 
been  elbowed  out  in  favor  of  the  unlikely. 

It  was  rumored  among  the  populace  that  it  had  been  Davy 
Herold  who  held  Booth's  horse  in  the  alley  that  night.  ("Peanuts" 
Burroughs,  with  his  bruised  head  and  no  tip,  knew  better.)  Maun- 
sell  B.  Field,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  said  that  at  first 
the  impression  was  prevalent  that  Lincoln's  wound  was  "about 
the  region  of  the  heart"  and  "might  not  prove  fatal."  Talk  was 
that  in  the  darkness  ambushed  enemies  at  several  points  had  fired 
on  the  pickets  sent  out  to  gird  the  city. 

It  was  said  that  John  Booth  had  handed  a  sealed  envelope  to 
John  F.  Coyle,  editor  of  the  Intelligencer,  with  the  request:  "If 
you  hear  of  me  within  twenty-four  hours,  publish  this;  if  you  do 
not  hear  of  me  within  that  time,  destroy  it."  Although  Coyle  ex- 
pressly denied  under  oath  that  either  he  or  anyone  else  connected 
with  the  Intelligencer  received  anything  of  the  sort,  the  yarn 
continued  to  turn  up— sometimes  with  ornamental  details,  such  as 
the  burning  of  the  still  unopened  packet  by  Coyle  at  a  dinner 
party.21 

The  fact  (as  we  have  seen)  was  that  on  the  afternoon  of  April 
14th  Booth  had  given  to  his  friend  John  Matthews  "a  paper 
sealed  and  stamped,"  to  be  delivered  next  morning  at  the  Intelli- 
gencer office.  During  the  uproar  in  the  theater  immediately  after 

aPoore,  vol.  i,  pp.  352-353.  New  York  Tribune,  June  22,  1878. 


202  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

the  murder,  Matthews,  who  seems  to  have  been  thoroughly  terri- 
fied by  what  had  happened,  went  straight  to  his  room  in  the  Peter- 
sen house  and  locked  the  door.  He  expected  that  Ford's  would  be 
burned.  When  he  removed  his  coat,  the  letter  Booth  had  handed 
him  dropped  to  the  floor.  He  opened  and  read  it.  It  covered  three 
pages  of  notepaper,  and  Matthews  said  (more  than  two  years 
afterward)  that  the  last  paragraph  went  about  like  this: 

For  a  long  time  I  have  devoted  my  energies,  my  time  and  money  to 
the  accomplishment  of  a  certain  end.  I  have  been  disappointed.  The 
moment  has  now  arrived  when  I  must  change  my  plans.  Many  will 
blame  me  for  what  I  am  about  to  do;  but  posterity,  I  am  sure,  will 
justify  me. 

Men  who  love  their  country  better  than  gold  or  life:  J.  W.  Booth, 
Paine,  Herold,  Atzerodt.22 

Matthews  promptly  burned  the  letter.  He  felt  very  much  as  did 
another  friend  of  Booth's,  Col.  William  E.  Sinn,  who  was  manag- 
ing the  Chestnut  Street  Theatre  in  Philadelphia.  "...  I  tried," 
wrote  Sinn,  "to  persuade  myself  that  I  did  not  know  Booth.  When 
questioned  in  regard  to  the  subject  my  memory  was  a  blank." 
Matthews  had  been  cognizant  of  the  abduction  plot  and  naturally 
felt  uneasy.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  shock  of  the  murder 
deeply  affected  him.  In  later  years  he  would  sometimes  hint  that 
he  had  come  within  an  ace  of  being  hanged  on  a  lamppost.  From 
1891  he  was  investigating  agent  or  almoner  of  the  Actors'  Fund  in 
New  York  City.  His  close  friend  James  Young,  Shakespearean 
actor  and  lecturer  on  the  drama,  stated  to  the  present  writer: 

I  never  spoke  to  him  about  his  experiences  during  the  time  of  the 
Lincoln  murder.  Any  reference  to  it  made  him  wildly  excited  so  that 
he  earned  the  reputation  of  being  erratic — which  he  was  not.  Unfeeling 
people  would  purposely  make  mention  of  the  fact  that  he  was  mixed  up 
in  the  conspiracy,  to  see  the  effect  it  would  have.  Matthews  would  rush 
madly  from  the  room. 

In  one  instance  we  have  an  opportunity  to  watch  a  fiction  in 
process  of  growth.  Between  the  second  and  third  acts  Lewis  Car- 
land,  the  theater's  costumer,  and  James  Gifford,  stage  carpenter, 
had  gone  out  with  Conductor  Withers  and  John  Dyott  (the  Abel 

22  Matthews'  letter  to  the  Intelligencer,  July  18,  1867.  Cf.  the  version  he  gave  before 
the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  (Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session,  House  Report  7; 
p.  783). 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  203 

Murcott  of  the  play)  for  a  drink  in  Taltavull's  place.  Gifford  and 
Carland  then  remained  for  a  while  in  front  of  the  theater,  where 
they  were  joined  by  Courtland  Hess,  the  actor  whose  part  the 
call  boy  Ferguson  was  taking.  Hess  was  to  be  one  of  the  vocalists 
when  "Honor  to  Our  Soldiers"  was  given  at  the  close  of  the  per- 
formance. Wondering  how  soon  he  must  get  into  evening  clothes 
and  appear  before  the  President,  he  asked  in  a  rather  loud  tone 
what  time  it  was  and  Carland  stepped  into  the  lobby,  looked  at 
the  clock,  brought  word  that  it  was  ten  minutes  past  ten.  "Ten 
minutes  past  ten,"  said  Hess— 'Til  be  wanted  in  a  few  minutes."  23 

A  Sergeant  Dye,  from  Camp  Barry,  was  loitering  on  the  side- 
walk. We  can  only  surmise  that  the  Sergeant  may  also  have  been 
patronizing  Taltavull's— not  wisely  but  too  well;  for  after  the 
murder  he  told  an  absurd  yarn  of  how  Booth  and  two  fellow- 
conspirators  had  met  in  front  of  the  theater  and  behaved  most 
conspicuously  and  suspiciously,  and  how  one  of  the  accomplices 
had,  watchman  fashion,  thrice  called  the  time  from  the  lobby.  For 
a  half-hour  the  Sergeant  observed  these  dubious  proceedings  but 
did  nothing,  though  inwardly  conjecturing  that  they  boded  no 
good  to  the  President.24 

Young  George  Alfred  Townsend  ("Gath"),  special  corre- 
spondent of  New  York's  World,  when  he  chanced  upon  this  fan- 
tasy of  Dye's,  transmuted  it  into  something  rich  and  strange: 

Suddenly  there  was  a  murmur  near  the  audience  door,  as  of  a  man 
speaking  above  his  bound.  He  said: — 

"Nine  o'clock  and  forty-five  minutes!" 

These  words  were  reiterated  from  mouth  to  mouth  until  they  passed 
the  theatre  door,  and  were  heard  upon  the  sidewalk. 

Directly  a  voice  cried,  in  the  same  slightly  raised  monotone — 

"Nine  o'clock  and  fifty  minutes!"  This  also  passed  from  man  to  man, 
until  it  touched  the  street  like  a  shudder. 

"Nine  o'clock  and  fifty-five  minutes!"  said  the  same  relentless  voice, 
after  the  next  interval,  each  of  which  narrowed  to  a  lesser  span  the  life 
of  the  good  President. 

Ten  o'clock  here  sounded,  and  conspiring  echo  said  in  reverbera- 
tion— 

"Ten  o'clock!" 

^Surratt  Trial,  vol.  i,  pp.  557-566. 

24  New  York  Tribune,  Apr.  21,  1865.  Testimony  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial. 


204  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

So,  like  a  creeping  thing,  from  lip  to  lip  went — 

"Ten  o'clock  and  five  minutes!" 

An  interval. 

"Ten  o'clock  and  ten  minutes!" 

At  this  instant  Wilkes  Booth  appeared  in  the  door  of  the  theatre, 
and  the  men  who  had  repeated  the  time  so  faithfully  and  so  ominously, 
scattered  at  his  coming  as  at  some  warning  phantom. 

All  of  which  is  an  extract  not  from  a  "penny  dreadful"  or  a 
dime  novel  but  from  a  journalist's  letter  to  his  paper.  It  is  fustian 
and  nonsense— but  not  more  so  than  other  things  written  about 
Lincoln's  murder. 

William  M.  Stewart,  senator  from  Nevada,  was  responsible  for 
a  story  that  has  been  retailed  by  various  writers,  either  with  com- 
plete indorsement  or  with  something  like  tacit  approval.  Accord- 
ing to  Stewart,  Andrew  Johnson,  wakened  in  the  Kirkwood  House 
at  eight  o'clock  on  the  dire  morning  of  April  15th,  was  in  a  be- 
sotted condition,  hardly  able  to  walk  and  with  mud  caked  in  his 
hair.  Barber,  doctor,  tailor  were  summoned  for  the  emergency, 
that  Johnson  might  be  rendered  halfway  fit  for  public  view.  Of 
this  figment  and  its  several  minutiae  we  may  well  say,  with  George 
F.  Milton,  "A  more  outrageous  lie  has  seldom  been  told  in  his- 
tory." 

When  Johnson  was  sworn  in  at  eleven  o'clock  that  morning  in 
his  Kirkwood  lodgings,  all  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  except 
Seward  were  present  and  the  senators  who  had  not  yet  left  the 
capital  were  brought  in  as  witnesses.  None  found  anything  to 
criticize  in  the  occasion  except  that  a  few  detected  traces  of  ego- 
tism in  Johnson's  five-minute  address  and  regretted  the  absence 
of  any  eulogy  of  Lincoln.  The  opening  sentence  was:  "I  must  be 
permitted  to  say  that  I  have  been  almost  overwhelmed  by  the 
announcement  of  the  sad  event  which  has  so  recently  occurred"; 
and  Johnson  was  scarcely  to  be  blamed  if  he  thought  extempore 
panegyric  unsuitable. 

He  had  been  roused  from  sleep  on  Friday  night  by  Ex-Gov. 
L.  J.  Farwell  of  Wisconsin,  who  had  rushed  from  the  theater  to 
the  Kirkwood  and  told  him  the  news.  The  temporary  guard  sta- 
tioned by  the  hotel  clerks  was  soon  relieved  by  the  provost  guard 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  205 

of  Maj.  James  O'Beirne,  and  personal  friends  arrived  to  inquire 
after  Johnson's  safety.  "Distrust  and  horror,"  wrote  Farwell, 
"filled  every  mind."  Johnson  decided  to  go  to  the  Petersen  house, 
although  his  friends  thought  he  ought  not  to  leave  the  hotel 
"when  there  was  so  much  excitement  in  the  city,  and  when  the 
extent  of  the  conspiracy  was  unknown."  Major  O'Beirne  wished 
to  send  a  detachment  of  troops  with  him  but  Johnson  declined 
the  offer;  and,  accompanied  by  only  the  Major  and  Farwell,  he 
made  his  way  to  Petersen's  and  joined  the  "sad  circle"  in  the  over- 
crowded little  back  room.  In  the  account  obtained  by  Senator 
Doolittle  for  the  State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin,  Farwell 
does  not  say  that  Johnson  remained  until  the  end.25 

A  Washington  dispatch  printed  in  the  first  edition  (one-thirty 
p.m.)  of  the  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser  for  Saturday 
afternoon,  April  15th,  referred  thus  to  the  scene  at  453  Tenth 
Street: 

Mr.  Sumner  is  seated  at  the  head  of  the  bed.  Secretary  Stanton, 
Welles,  Dennison,  Usher  and  McCulloh  [sic],  and  Mr.  Speed  are  in  the 
room.  A  large  number  of  surgeons,  generals,  and  personal  family 
friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  fill  the  house.  All  are  in  tears.  Andy  Johnson  is 
here.  He  was  in  bed  in  his  room  at  the  Kirkwood  when  the  assassina- 
tion was  committed.  He  was  immediately  apprised  of  the  event,  and 
got  up.  The  precaution  was  taken  of  providing  a  guard  of  soldiers  for 
him  and  these  were  at  his  door  before  the  news  was  well  through  the 
avenue. 

Some  contemporary  pictures  show  Johnson  in  the  group  at  the 
bedside,  others  do  not.  That  is  of  no  significance,  especially  as  the 
group  changed  many  times  during  the  night  and  no  two  of  the 
pictures  fully  correspond. 

It  was  believed  by  many  that  scene  shifter  Edman  Spangler  cut 
the  rough  mortise  that  was  found  in  the  wall  behind  the  vestibule 
door,  supplied  the  wooden  bar,  and  bored  the  quarter-inch  hole 
in  the  door  of  box  7.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  did  any  of 
these  things.  Spangler's  customary  daytime  work  was  limited  to 
the  stage  or  its  close  neighborhood  and  he  was  not  seen  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  house  unless  specifically  directed  to  go  there— 

25  Doolittle  Papers,  State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin. 


206  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

as  he  was,  for  example,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  14th,  when  he 
and  Jake  Ritterspaugh,  another  scene  shifter,  removed  the  parti- 
tion between  boxes  7  and  8  and  forthwith  went  downstairs.  The 
mortise  was  cut  roughly  into  the  plaster  with  a  penknife;  the  bar 
was  a  makeshift,  originally  intended  for  some  other  purpose.  A 
carpenter  like  Spangler  would  not  have  made  the  one  nor  used 
the  other.  It  was  testified  that  the  hole  in  the  box  door  appeared 
to  have  been  bored  with  a  gimlet,  then  reamed  with  a  penknife. 
An  iron-handled  gimlet,  capable  of  boring  a  hole  three-sixteenths 
of  an  inch  in  diameter,  was  discovered  in  Booth's  trunk  at  the 
National  after  Booth  had  disappeared. 

Three  or  four  times  during  that  season  Booth  had  engaged  box 
7,  and  he  commonly  had  access  to  all  parts  of  the  theater.  The 
vestibule  door  had  no  fastening  whatever  and  he  could  have  en- 
tered the  vestibule  unobserved  when  he  wished.  It  was  because 
this  door  had  no  fastening  on  the  inside  that  he  had  the  bar  ready 
to  thrust  like  a  strut  between  the  door  and  the  wall,  with  which  it 
made  an  acute  angle.  One  end  of  the  bar  would  rest  in  the  crude, 
shallow  mortise.  The  idea  was  of  course  to  keep  anyone  from  fol- 
lowing on  Booth's  heels. 

Several  circumstances  show  that  Spangler  could  have  had  no 
knowledge  of  Booth's  design.  When  Booth  rode  into  the  alley 
between  five  and  six  on  Friday  afternoon  and  sent  for  Spangler, 
the  busy  stagehand  came  reluctantly  and,  having  led  the  horse 
into  the  stable,  started  to  remove  saddle  and  bridle,  evidently 
supposing  that  Booth  was  putting  up  the  animal  for  the  night. 
Later,  when  Booth,  during  the  course  of  the  play,  led  the  horse 
up  to  the  rear  door,  Spangler  took  the  rein  unwillingly  and 
quickly  turned  it  over  to  "Peanuts." 

John  F.  Sleichmann,  assistant  property  man,  stated  that  Span- 
gler, when  Booth  came  in  the  rear  door,  was  "standing  by  one  of 
the  wings";  that  Booth  said,  "Ned,  you'll  help  me  all  you  can, 
won't  you?"  and  that  Spangler  answered,  "Oh,  yes."  It  appears, 
however,  that  Sleichmann  was  nowhere  near  the  rear  door  at  the 
time  and  that  Spangler  did  not  meet  Booth  on  the  inside  of  the 
door  but  went  outside,  where  Booth  was  waiting.  Spangler  long 
afterward  explained  that  this  interchange  did  occur  in  the  hearing 
of  Sleichmann  and  others  but  on  a  previous  occasion  and  in  ref- 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  207 

erence  to  the  sale  of  Booth's  driving  horse  and  buggy. 2Q  Much  was 
made  of  a  rope  found  in  Spangler's  carpetbag  at  a  house  where  he 
took  his  meals.  The  rope  was  plainly  an  old  one  that  had  served 
its  day  in  the  theater  and  been  treasured  by  Spangler  for  future 
use  as  a  crabline.  If  it  was  for  service  that  night— and  what  could 
that  service  imaginably  have  been?— why  was  it  not  kept  at  hand 
in  the  theater  or  in  Booth's  stable? 

Spangler  did  not  continue  to  hold  Booth's  horse— without  delay 
he  went  back  to  his  place  on  the  stage.  He  did  not  open  the  door 
for  Booth— Booth  himself  opened  the  door  and  slammed  it  as 
he  passed  out.  At  the  moment  of  the  fatal  shot,  Spangler  was  just 
back  of  the  doorway  in  the  scenery— a  point  at  some  distance  from 
the  passage  and  door  through  which  Booth  went.  Spangler  made 
no  attempt  to  get  away.  He  remained  "about  the  Theatre,"  wrote 
John  T.  Ford,  "bitterly  lamenting  he  did  not  know  Booth's  intent 
or  his  crime  until  after  his  escape  as  he  would  have  struck  and  cap- 
tured him."  Taken  to  Carroll  prison  on  Monday  the  17th,  Span- 
gler was  brought  on  the  20th  to  the  Superintendent's  office  and 
there  confronted  with  the  romancing  Sergeant  Dye,  "who  merely 
nodded  his  head  and  left  the  room."  Thus  was  the  scene  shifter 
identified  as  one  of  the  two  villains  with  whom  Dye  alleged  Booth 
had  been  conferring  on  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  Ford's!  27  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  there  was  evidence  enough,  both  positive  and  negative, 
to  show  that  Spangler  could  not  have  been  there.  We  know  that 
Jake  Ritterspaugh,  who  bore  false  witness  against  Spangler,  had 
been  heard  to  say  he  would  like  to  get  some  of  the  reward  money; 
and  possibly  the  same  kind  of  bee  was  humming  in  Dye's  bonnet. 

Booth's  drawn  bowie  knife,  it  was  whispered,  had  been  for 
Grant— but  Booth  must  have  been  fully  aware  that  Grant  was  not 
present.  The  knife,  a  silent  weapon,  was  primarily  for  anybody 
that  might  try  to  intercept  Booth  in  the  vestibule;  secondarily  for 
anybody  that  might  get  in  his  way  or  attempt  to  grapple  with  him 
(as  Major  Rathbone  did)  after  the  single-shot  Deringer  had  been 
fired.  A  cartridge  has  been  exhibited  as  "similar  to  the  one  which 
Booth  used  in  shooting  Lincoln."  Booth's  Deringer  did  not  fire 

26  Statement  in  "The  Life  of  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd,"  p.  324. 
"John  T.  Ford  MSS. 


208 


THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 


a  cartridge— it  was  a  muzzle-loader,  firing  a  ball  by  means  of  a 
brass  percussion  cap.  After  the  weapon  was  picked  up  in  the  box 
where  Booth  had  dropped  it,  an  extra  cap  was  found  in  a  cavity 
in  the  butt.  Just  what  Booth  would  have  done  if  the  pistol  had 


THE  "STATE  BOX"  AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  MURDER 

a.  Apron  of  stage — b.  Door  into  vestibule  from  dress  circle — c.  Door  of 
nearer  box  (this  remained  closed) — d.  Door  of  farther  box  (this  remained 
open — e.  Lincoln — /.  Mrs.  Lincoln — g.  Miss  Harris — h.  Major  Rathbone — 
i.  Spot  where  Booth  landed  on  stage,  near  first-tier  boxes — k.  Line  of  re- 
moved partition. 

missed  fire,  as  Lawrence's  two  pistols  did  when  he  leveled  them 
at  Andrew  Jackson,  we  have  no  way  of  knowing.  As  it  was,  he 
dropped  the  pistol  and  shifted  the  knife  from  his  left  hand  to  his 
right.  A  professor  was  reported  as  having  said  that  more  than  two 
hundred  pistols  "with  which  Lincoln  was  killed"  are  in  existence 
in  various  collections  and  that  some  of  them  were  not  made  until 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  209 

long  after  1865.  The  genuine  article  never  left  the  keeping  of  the 
War  Department.  As  for  the  hole  in  the  door,  which  some  main- 
tained was  to  shoot  through— it  was  to  look  through,  so  that  Booth 
might  know  just  where  and  how  Lincoln  was  sitting. 

Rathbone  seized  Booth,  but  he  broke  away  and  lunged  at  Rath- 
bone  with  the  knife.  Parrying  the  stroke,  Rathbone  was  wounded 
in  the  left  arm,  but  he  rushed  forward  in  a  vain  endeavor  again  to 
seize  Booth,  who  was  just  going  over  the  balustrade.  In  his  dash 
along  the  passage  from  the  stage  to  the  rear  door,  Booth  collided 
with  William  Withers,  the  conductor,  who  stood  in  the  third  en- 
trance. He  made  a  couple  of  stabs  at  Withers  and  plunged  out 
into  the  darkness.  It  may  be  that,  coming  from  the  footlighted 
stage  into  the  dim  alley,  he  did  not  rightly  know  who  was  holding 
the  horse.  Possibly  he  thought  it  was  Spangler.  As  he  mounted,  he 
felled  "Peanuts"  with  a  blow  from  the  butt  end  of  the  knife. 
Stewart,  close  behind,  reached  the  alley  in  time  to  see  the  horse 
curvetting  from  side  to  side.  Then,  crouched  over  the  pommel 
of  the  saddle,  Booth  spurred  the  animal  forward  and  up  the  slight 
incline  of  the  alley  entrance  into  F  Street,  where  he  turned,  Stew- 
art said,  to  the  right   (toward  the  Patent  Office). 

Of  minor  consequence  in  itself,  but  illustrative  of  the  jumbled 
and  inconsistent  testimony  as  to  what  happened  at  Ford's,  is  the 
dispute  regarding  Laura  Keene.  Townsend  said  that  Miss  Keene 
"ascended  the  stairs  in  the  rear  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  box"— but  there 
were  no  stairs  in  the  rear  of  the  "state  box."  John  T.  Ford  ex- 
pressly stated  that  the  only  approach  was  by  the  vestibule  door 
through  which  Booth  went;  Harry  Ford,  that  there  was  no  door 
in  the  back  wall.28  According  to  the  New  York  Herald,  Miss  Keene 
"made  her  way,  which  was  rather  circuitous,  through  the  dress 
circle  to  the  President's  box."  William  J.  Ferguson  wrote  that  he 
personally  assisted  Miss  Keene  over  the  footlights  to  the  floor  of 
the  orchestra.  "We  went  rapidly  to  the  lobby  stairs,"  he  continued, 
"and  thence  up  to  the  box."  .  .  .29 

Mrs.  J.  B.  Wright  (Annie  F.  Wright),  widow  of  the  stage  man- 
ager at  Ford's,  denied  that  Miss  Keene  was  in  the  box  at  all, 
saying: 

28  Surratt  Trial   ("The  Reporter,"  vol.  iv,  pp.  13,  18). 

29  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Feb.  12,  1929. 


2io  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

There  was  no  way  that  she  could  have  gained  access  to  the  box  di- 
rectly from  the  stage.  She  would  have  had  to  go  to  the  front  of  the 
theater,  mount  the  main  staircase  to  the  balcony  [dress  circle],  then 
work  her  way  through  a  surging  crowd  along  the  back  of  the  balcony 
to  the  box.  It  was  simply  impossible.30 

Nevertheless,  Miss  Jennie  Gourlay  (Mrs.  Struthers)  asserted 
that  Miss  Keene  was  in  the  box.  Three  Gourlays  were  in  that 
night's  cast:  Thomas  C.  (Sir  Edward  Trenchard),  and  daughters 
Margaret  and  Jennie  (respectively,  Skillet  and  Mary  Meredith). 
Jennie  stated  that  T.  C.  Gourlay  "took  Laura  Keene  up  to  the 
box  by  a  way  known  to  the  regular  [Ford's]  company"— that  he 
"escorted  Miss  Keene  through  a  side  entrance"— that  he  "unlocked 
a  door  of  a  private  passage."  31  As  we  have  noted,  the  stage  en- 
trance proper  was  on  the  "lower"  (south)  side  of  the  theater,  and 
was  reached  from  Tenth  Street  by  passing  through  a  corridor  in 
the  adjoining  building  (where  Taltavull's  place  was),  then  along 
the  theater  wall  and  up  a  few  steps  from  the  ground  level  to  the 
level  of  the  stage.  This  three-storied  adjoining  building  extended 
back  less  than  half  the  depth  of  the  theater,  and  at  the  rear  an 
outer  stair  gave  convenient  access  to  the  third  floor,  where  Harry 
and  James  Ford  had  their  rooms. 

If  Jennie  Gourlay's  statement  is  correct,  it  seems  possible  that 
Miss  Keene  went  up  this  stair  and  thus  entered  the  "lounging 
room"  that  opened  from  the  adjoining  building's  second  floor  di- 
rectly into  the  south  end  of  the  dress  circle.  Thence  she  could  have 
got  readily  to  the  box.32  Eyewitness  Thomas  H.  Sherman,  who 
had  climbed  onto  the  stage,  speaks  of  Miss  Keene  as  "the  only  cool 
person  there."  She  said,  by  Sherman's  account,  "For  God's  sake, 
gentlemen,  be  quiet;  keep  cool."  She  helped  a  man  up  over  the 
side  of  the  box  and  sent  for  a  pitcher  of  water.  Sherman  does  not, 
however,  mention  her  presence  in  the  box.  But  eyewitnesses 
Helen  Truman,  E.  A.  Emerson,  and  Dr.  Charles  A.  Leale  (who, 
after  the  vestibule  door  was  opened,  entered  the  box  from  the 
dress  circle  to  offer  such  medical  aid  as  might  be  possible)  agree 
that  Miss  Keene  was  there. 

30  Boston  Globe,  Apr.  11,  1915. 

31  A.  C.  Clark,  "Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  National  Capital";  pp.  107-108.  Minne- 
apolis Journal,  Apr.  27,  1914. 

32  Washington  Star,  May  16,  1865.  New  York  Clipper,  May  20.  Testimony  of  Mad- 
dox  and  Simms  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  211 

On  the  night  of  the  14th,  Seaton  Munroe,  a  lawyer  having  an 
office  on  Fifth  Street  opposite  the  City  Hall,  was  walking  along 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  with  a  friend  when  suddenly  a  man  ran 
down  Tenth  Street,  calling  out,  "My  God!  The  President  is  killed 
at  Ford's  Theatre!"  Munroe  started  for  the  theater,  and  there,  he 
says,  encountered  Laura  Keene.  ".  .  .  Her  hair  and  dress  were  in 
disorder,  and  not  only  was  her  gown  soaked  with  Lincoln's  blood, 
but  her  hands,  even  her  cheeks  where  her  fingers  had  strayed,  were 
bedaubed  with  the  sorry  stains!"  The  weight  of  evidence  seems  to 
be  that  Lincoln  bled  very  little  if  at  all  while  in  the  theater  be- 
cause of  the  clot  that  gathered  around  the  orifice  of  the  wound. 
Dr.  Charles  Taft  said  that  at  the  Petersen  house  the  wound  had  to 
be  kept  "free  from  coagula."  Blood  was  on  the  yellow  satin  cos- 
tume worn  by  the  brunette  Miss  Keene,  but  it  was  Major  Rath- 
bone's.  "I  am  sorry  to  say,"  commented  W.  J.  Ferguson,  "that  after 
this  great  tragedy,  Miss  Keene,  in  her  travels  throughout  the  coun- 
try, would  exhibit  this  dress  and  claim  that  it  was  stained  with  the 
blood  of  the  President."  This  was  probably  done  in  good  faith  and 
is  hardly  deserving  of  Ferguson's  strictures. 

A  Capt.  Silas  Owen,  described  as  commanding  officer  of  the 
U.S.S.  Primrose,  an  eyewitness  at  Ford's  that  night,  says  that  the 
dark  man  "clambered  down  the  side  of  the  box"  and  that  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  leaning  over  the  box's  edge,  called  out  to  the  audience, 
"They  have  shot  pa!"  ("I  remember  the  homely  phrase  so  well," 
the  Captain  avers,  with  apparent  seriousness.)  As  if  this  were  not 
enough,  the  reminiscent  sea-dog  relates  that  "Mrs."  Keene  was 
standing  irrelevantly  between  boxes  and  lowered  curtain,  that  the 
dark  man  "dragged  himself  up  to  her,"  and  that  she,  extending 
her  hands  toward  him,  asked,  "What  have  you  done,  John?"  The 
insidious  fellow  thereupon  thrust  at  her  with  his  dagger  and  cried, 
"Sic  semper  tyrannis!"  33 

Other  eyewitnesses  are  equally  imaginative,  if  less  amusing. 
One  W.  H.  Roberts  of  Findlay,  Ohio,  a  cavalryman  in  the  war, 
says  the  curtain  was  not  rung  up  on  "Our  American  Cousin"  until 
after  Lincoln  was  seated.34  A  Jennie  Ross  (Mrs.  W.  E.  W.  Ross) 
of  Philadelphia  is  said  to  have  been  in  the  cast  that  night  as  Jennie 

33  Boston  Sunday  Journal,  Sept.  22,  1895. 

34  New  York  Times,  Feb.  13,  1927. 


212  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Anderson  (though  no  such  name  is  on  the  playbill)  and  frequently 
to  have  recalled  how  Miss  Keene  climbed  into  the  box  and  took 
the  President's  head  in  her  lap.35  It  seems  to  be  true  that  Miss 
Keene,  after  reaching  the  box,  did  support  Lincoln's  head;  but 
that  honor  has  likewise  been  claimed  by  a  Mrs.  Willard,  who  ex- 
hibited apparel  with  "large  dark  splotches"  on  it  and  stated  that 
she  occupied  the  box  next  to  the  President!  36 

One  Myron  Parker  of  Washington  wrote  to  the  Post  of  that  city 
that  he  was  in  the  audience  at  Ford's;  that  he  neither  saw  any 
"undue  commotion"  nor  heard  any  uproar.  "Some  emotional 
person  did  call  out  that  the  theater  was  on  fire,"  he  admitted  (we 
do  not  learn  of  this  elsewhere),  "but  this  created  no  excitement,  as 
some  gentleman  on  the  stage  assured  the  audience  that  there  was 
no  cause  for  alarm.  The  audience  then  moved  out  of  the  theatre 
in  the  usual  orderly  manner."  37 

Athanasius  against  the  world:  others  thought  it  an  extraordinary 
occasion,  but  not  the  phlegmatic  Mr.  Parker.  "Excited  crowds 
during  the  war  were  nothing  new  to  me,"  wrote  Sea  ton  Munroe, 
"but  I  had  never  witnessed  such  a  scene  as  was  now  presented. 
The  seats,  aisles,  galleries,  and  stage  were  filled  with  shouting, 
frenzied  men  and  women,  many  running  aimlessly  over  one  an- 
other; a  chaos  of  disorder  beyond  control  had  any  visible  authority 
attempted  to  exercise  it."  38  But  Mr.  Parker  was  quietly  oblivious 
to  it  all. 

A  Ford's  playbill  bearing  the  words 

THIS  EVENING 

The  Performance  will  be  honored  by  the  presence  of 

PRESIDENT  LINCOLN 

still  is  quite  often  accepted  as  genuine,  although  dealers  and  col- 
lectors have  long  known  it  to  be  a  forgery,  and  a  poor  one  at  that. 
Originals  carry  at  the  bottom  the  imprint  of  Polkinhorn  (D 
Street,  near  Seventh).  Some  lack  the  "Prices  of  Admission,"  which 

35  New  York  Times,  Dec.  29,  1924. 

36  New  York  Post,  Apr.  6,  1936. 

37  Post,  Feb.  19,  1917.  Clark,  "Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  National  Capital";  pp.  217- 
218. 

38 North  American  Review,  Apr.  1896. 


War  Department  photograph 

"STATE  BOX"  AT  FORD'S,  FROM  THE  STAGE 
(Treasury  Guard  colors  in  center,  above  portrait) 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  213 

were  dropped  to  make  room  for  a  quotation  from  the  song  "Honor 
to  Our  Soldiers."  Typographical  differences  between  genuine  bills 
and  the  forgery  are  many  and  obvious. 

It  was  once  proclaimed  that  a  gentleman  in  Brooklyn,  New 
York,  was  owner  of  a  playbill  stained  with  Lincoln's  blood.  He 
was  said  to  have  received  it  by  gift  from  an  uncle,  a  lawyer  in 
Washington,  to  whom  it  had  been  presented  by  John  T.  Ford, 
"first  man  to  reach  the  box  after  the  fatal  shot  had  been  fired." 
Ford  had  picked  it  up  near  the  rocking  chair;  and  before  he  died, 
in  November  1879,  had  signed  an  affidavit  to  that  effect.  Terming 
this  a  "rare  bit  of  humor,"  Ford— who  still  was  active  as  a  man- 
ager, and  who  lived  until  March  14th,  1894— explained  that  at 
the  time  of  the  murder  he  was  in  Richmond  (whither  he  had  gone 
on  a  personal  errand).  He  had,  he  said,  identified  a  playbill  for  "a 
gentleman  living  in  the  North,"  but  could  state  "most  emphat- 
ically" that  it  had  no  bloodstains  on  it. 

Lincoln's  blood  seemed  to  hold  peculiar  interest  for  the  gory- 
minded.  A  clerical  memorandum,  with  a  few  words  added  by  the 
President  on  April  14th  and  signed  "A.  L.,"  was  retrieved  from  the 
archives  of  the  Treasury  Department.  A  newspaper  reporter  hap- 
pened to  see  it  and  gave  out  that  Lincoln's  blood  had  spotted  it. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  Lincoln  had  the  memorandum  on  his 
person  when  he  was  shot;  and  the  alleged  bloodstains  were  noth- 
ing but  what  is  termed  "foxiness"— the  result  of  age  and  dampness. 

A  glib  radio  talker  is  on  record  as  having  informed  the  world 
that  the  Jewelers'  Association  of  America,  in  convention  at  Wash- 
ington at  some  time  during  1865,  passed  a  resolution  to  this  ef- 
fect: 

RESOLVED,  that  from  and  after  this  date  all  signs  of  dummy 
watches  or  clocks,  indicating  the  jeweler's  business,  shall  show  on  their 
face  the  hands  pointing  to  that  time,  22I/2  minutes  after  eight — 

the  said  time  being  that  at  which  Lincoln  had  entered  the  theater. 
The  said  time  is  impossible,  inasmuch  as  Major  Rathbone  stated 
in  his  affidavit  that  it  was  not  until  "about  twenty  minutes  after 
eight  o'clock"  that  Miss  Harris  and  he  left  their  residence  at  Four- 
teenth and  H  Streets  to  join  the  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  in 
the  carriage. 

This  is  only  an  old  fiction  in  a  new  guise.  There  used  to  be  a 


214  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

flamboyant  piece  that  told  why  the  big  watches  on  posts,  long  the 
watch  repairer's  common  sign,  had  their  painted  hands  at  eight- 
eighteen.  At  precisely  that  moment,  it  appeared,  Booth  had  shot 
Lincoln— "so  always  that  dumb  horologe  reads  eight-eighteen!"  In 
other  words,  Lincoln  was  shot  before  he  had  entered  the  theater. 
Many  dumb  horologes  have  been  fixed  unchangingly  at  approxi- 
mately twenty  minutes  after  eight;  and  the  reason  was  that  this 
spread  of  the  hands  made  a  balanced  arrangement  and  gave  room 
for  advertising. 

But  at  just  what  time  did  John  Booth  fire  the  shot?  Dr.  Robert 
K.  Stone,  the  Lincolns'  family  physician,  summoned  by  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln to  the  Petersen  house,  said  it  was  "about  a  quarter  past  10" 
when  he  reached  the  President.  This  is  manifestly  incorrect.  Eye- 
witness J.  P.  Ferguson  said  it  was  somewhere  near  ten  when  he 
saw  Booth  leaning  against  the  wall  of  the  dress  circle  near  the 
vestibule  door.  Eyewitnesses  J.  B.  Stewart  and  Dr.  Charles  Taft 
practically  coincide:  Taft  says  the  shot  was  at  half-past  ten,  and 
Stewart  testified  that  at  about  half-past  ten  the  sharp  report  of  a 
pistol— "evidently  a  charged  pistol"— startled  him. 

Nicolay  and  Hay  give  "...  a  few  minutes  past  ten,"  David  H. 
Bates  places  it  at  ten-twenty.  None  of  the  three  was  present.  Nico- 
lay had  left  Washington  for  a  trip  to  Cuba;  Hay  was  at  the  Execu- 
tive Mansion;  Bates  was  on  night  duty  at  the  telegraph  office  of 
the  War  Department.  John  E.  Buckingham,  doorkeeper  at  Ford's, 
who  had  opportunity  to  consult  the  lobby  clock  from  time  to 
time,  told  an  interviewer  for  the  Washington  Star:  "I  should  say  it 
was  about  twenty  minutes  after  ten  o'clock,  and  I  was  putting  away 
my  checks  and  tickets  and  getting  ready  to  close  up  when  the  show 
was  over,  when  I  heard  the  noise  of  a  pistol  shot."  39  If  we  put  the 
fateful  moment  in  the  interval  from  "about"  ten-twenty  to 
"about"  ten-thirty,  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong;  but  we  have  no  war- 
rant for  being  more  precise. 

The  ball  entered  the  skull  about  midway  between  the  left  ear 
and  the  median  line  of  the  back  of  the  head— but  doctors  disagreed 
as  to  where  it  lodged.  In  the  anterior  part  of  the  left  side  of  the 
brain— so  testified  Dr.  R.  K.  Stone;  and  his  statement  was  followed 
by  Nicolay  and  Hay.  Within  a  half-inch  of  the  right  eye— so  testi- 

39  Apr.  14,  1903. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  215 

fied  Surgeon-General  J.  K.  Barnes,  whose  assistant,  Doctor  Wood- 
ward, performed  the  autopsy  in  Barnes'  presence.  Woodward,  it 
was  stated,  found  the  ball  behind  the  orbit  of  the  right  eye.  Re- 
porting the  autopsy,  the  Intelligencer  said:40  "The  course  of  the 
ball  was  obliquely  forward  toward  the  right  eye,  crossing  the  brain 
in  an  oblique  manner,  and  lodging  a  few  inches  behind  that  eye." 

How  far  was  it  from  box  to  stage?  Figures  range  from  fourteen 
feet  (Laughlin)  to  "about  seven"  (D.  H.  Bates).  "Some  ten  feet," 
said  Miss  Chapman,  eyewitness;  eyewitness  Doctor  Taft  said 
twelve  feet.  Twelve  feet  was  also  the  reckoning  of  W.  J.  Ferguson, 
who  was  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  theater.  The  lower  boxes 
opened  not  far  above  the  level  of  the  stage.  One  correspondent  de- 
scribed them  as  "scarcely  more  than  loopholes"  and  observed: 

The  apertures  which  appear  above  the  stage  are  about  three  feet 
square.  Consequently  the  boxes  immediately  above  them  are  elevated 
but  a  short  distance  above  the  stage,  a  distance  which  any  one  could 
easily  leap,  even  were  his  nerves  not  freshly  braced  from  the  commis- 
sion of  a  murder.41 

It  was  testified  by  Harry  Ford  that  when  working  in  the  box  on 
Friday  afternoon  he  called  for  a  hammer  and  nails;  that  Spangler 
tossed  up  two  or  three  nails  "and  handed  me  the  hammer  up  from 
the  stage."  For  men  of  average  height,  with  fairly  long  arms,  nine 
feet  would  be  about  the  limit  at  which  this  could  be  done.  After 
the  shooting,  a  pitcher  of  water  was  handed  up  from  the  stage. 

In  his  affidavit,  Major  Rathbone  gave  the  height  of  the  box 
above  the  stage,  including  the  balustrade,  as  "about  ten  or  twelve 
feet."  Probably  eleven  feet  from  the  cushion  of  the  balustrade  to 
the  stage  would  be  a  fair  guess.  "It  was  a  high  leap,"  say  Nicolay 
and  Hay.  Not  for  Booth— at  least  John  T.  Ford  did  not  think  so; 
Ford  had  seen  Booth  introduce  leaps  equally  high— "extraordinary 
and  outrageous"  leaps— into  dramatic  performances  ("Macbeth," 
for  example)  and  make  them  "with  apparent  ease."  It  had  been 
rumored  in  the  press  that  "the  leap  of  Booth  from  the  box  to  the 
stage  had  been  rehearsed,"  42  but  Ford  dismissed  the  idea.   "I 

40  Apr.  17,  1865. 

41  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  Apr.  17,  1865;  p.  1  (special  Washington  dispatch  of  the 
16th). 

42  See  the  Washington  Weekly  Chronicle,  May  13,  1865;  p.  5. 


216  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

should  not  think  a  rehearsal  of  it  was  needed,"  he  said.  "He 
[Booth]  was  a  very  bold,  fearless  man.  .  .  .  He  excelled  in  all  manly 
sports." 

How  did  Booth  "leap"?  The  common  idea— fostered,  no  doubt, 
by  the  drawing  Albert  Berghaus  made  for  Frank  Leslie's— has  been 
that,  in  W.  J.  Ferguson's  words,  he  "mounted  the  box  railing" 
(balustrade)  and  jumped.  This  is  improbable.  Major  Rathbone 
stated  that  Booth  leaped  over  the  balustrade,  not  from  it  and  that 
he  "went  over  upon  the  stage."  He  placed  both  hands  on  the 
balustrade  and  "swung  over,"  W.  H.  Taylor  said.  J.  P.  Ferguson 
testified  that  Booth  put  his  left  hand  on  the  balustrade  and  seemed 
to  be  striking  behind  him  with  a  knife  held  in  his  right.  "I  could 
see  the  knife  gleam,"  Ferguson  said,  "and  the  next  moment  he  was 
over  the  box.  As  he  went  over,  his  hand  was  raised,  the  handle  of 
the  knife  up,  the  blade  down."  Rathbone,  Taylor,  and  J.  P.  Fer- 
guson are  thus  agreed  that  Booth  vaulted  the  low  balustrade.  Rath- 
bone, again  trying  to  seize  him,  grasped  at  his  clothing.  There  was 
neither  time  nor  opportunity  for  a  spectacular  descent.  Booth 
placed  his  hands  on  the  cushion  of  the  balustrade;  then  partly 
turned,  drew  back  his  right  hand  to  strike  at  Rathbone  with  the 
knife,  and,  supported  by  his  left  arm,  swung  his  legs  over  the 
balustrade  and  dropped. 

He  seemed  not  to  spring  but  to  tumble  onto  the  stage.  Mrs. 
J.  B.  Wright,  who  sat  in  the  fourth  row  of  the  orchestra  said:  "He 
landed  in  a  kneeling  posture,  his  left  knee  resting  on  the  stage." 
Many  in  the  audience  quite  naturally  wondered  where  he  had 
come  from  and  what  he  was  supposed  to  be  doing.  Major  Rath- 
bone believed  that  the  elapsed  time  between  shot  and  vault  did 
not  exceed  thirty  seconds.  It  probably  was  much  less.  No  doubt 
most  of  those  that  heard  the  report  of  the  pistol  imagined  it  to  be, 
as  Doctor  Taft  wrote,  "an  introductory  effect  preceding  some  new 
situation  in  the  play."  And  now  this  dark  man  came  hurtling  into 
the  gleam  of  the  footlights,  his  back  slightly  toward  the  audience, 
and  appeared  to  crumple  on  the  floor.  It  was  a  strange  apparition 
to  be  launched  into  the  midst  of  Asa  Trenchard's  homespun 
soliloquy. 

Booth  had  swung  his  legs  to  his  right,  toward  the  central  pillar. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  217 

Across  the  front  of  the  pillar  and  projecting  well  above  the  bal- 
ustrade hung  a  framed  engraving  of  George  Washington— an 
added  touch  to  the  decorative  scheme.  Above  this,  from  a  staff 
fixed  to  the  pillar,  depended  the  blue-and-white  regimental  colors 
of  the  Treasury  Guard.  Back  of  these  was  a  draped  lace  curtain. 
It  was  a  collection  of  obstacles  that  proved  John  Booth's  undoing. 
He  struck  the  picture  frame,  breaking  a  piece  from  the  molding 
and  knocking  the  picture  around  so  that  it  faced  inward,  and— 
possibly  in  trying  to  avoid  the  picture— he  put  his  right  foot  into 
the  Treasury  Guard's  colors. 

"The  blue,  or  regimental  color,  was  torn  by  the  spur  of  the 
assassin  catching  in  it  as  he  leaped  from  the  box  to  the  stage," 
said  an  editorial  note  in  Washington's  National  Republican.^ 
At  the  time  of  the  inspection  of  Ford's  by  the  Military  Commis- 
sion, the  Washington  Star  stated: 

The  stage  is  almost  precisely  in  the  condition  it  was  at  the  moment 
of  the  assassination.  The  scene  (third  act  "American  Cousin")  is  set  as 
at  that  moment.  .  .  .  The  box  used  by  Mr.  Lincoln  bears  the  same  pic- 
ture of  Washington  at  its  front,  and  a  couple  of  flags  are  draped  over 
the  box  [that  is,  the  balustrade]  as  then,  but  not  the  Treasury  Guards' 
flag,  which  caught  Booth's  spur  on  that  occasion.44 

Frank  Leslie's  sent  Berghaus,  a  staff  artist,  to  Washington  to 
make  sketches  in  connection  with  the  murder.  It  published  an 
engraving  made  from  one  of  his  sketches,  with  the  title:  "Flag  in 
front  of  the  President's  box  at  Ford's  Theatre,  Washington,  torn 
by  the  assassin  as  he  leaped  down  to  the  stage."  45  The  engraving 
shows  the  Treasury  Guard's  colors  with  a  rent  in  the  lower  edge 
and  the  fringe  torn  and  hanging. 

On  May  31st  Harry  Ford  testified  as  follows: 

Q.  Do  you  know  whether  Booth's  spur  caught  in  one  of  the  flags  as 
he  leaped  from  the  box? 

A.  I  heard  that  it  caught  in  the  blue  flag  in  the  centre;  I  do  not 
know  it.  [He  was  in  the  box-office  when  Booth  vaulted  to  the  stage.] 

Q.  Who  put  that  flag  there? 

A.  I  did;  it  was  the  one  obtained  from  the  Treasury  building. 

43  Apr.  20,  1865;  P-  2. 

"Star  of  May  16;  quoted  in  New  York  Clipper  of  May  20. 

45  May  20;  p.  141. 


218  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

He  added: 

I  found  two  flags  which  I  looped  up  and  placed  in  position;  then  an- 
other flag  came  down  from  the  Treasury  Department  and  I  altered 
them,  putting  the  new  flag  in  the  centre.  [The  first  two,  each  on  a  staff, 
were  placed  at  either  side  of  the  box.]  46 

James  R.  Ford  arranged  for  the  loan  of  the  Guard's  colors,  and 
they  were  brought  by  an  employee  of  the  Treasury  who  assisted 
Harry  Ford  in  draping  them. 

James  P.  Ferguson's  testimony,  as  correctly  reported,  was  this: 

Q.  Did  Booth's  spur  catch  in  the  flag? 

A.  His  spur  caught  in  the  flag  that  was  stretched  around  [the 
balustrade  of]  the  box.  There  was  also  a  flag  decorating  this  post.  His 
spur  caught  in  the  blue  part  of  it.  I  thought  it  was  a  State  flag  at  first, 
by  the  looks  of  it.  ...  As  he  went  over,  his  spur  caught  in  the  mould- 
ing that  ran  round  the  edge  of  the  box,  and  also  in  this  flag,  and  tore  a 
piece  of  the  flag.  .  .  ,47 

Maj.  Emory  S.  Turner  of  the  Treasury  Guard  was  deputed  to 
remove  and  take  charge  of  the  regimental  colors.  They  were  borne 
in  procession  when  Lincoln's  body  was  taken  from  the  Executive 
Mansion  to  the  Capitol  on  April  19th.  (The  military  escort  was 
limited  to  the  regular  Army  and  the  Marine  Corps,  so  that  the 
Treasury  Guard  did  not  march  as  such,  but  clerks  and  other  em- 
ployees of  the  Treasury  Department  joined  in  the  civic  proces- 
sion.) When  the  Treasury  Guard  was  disbanded,  Major  Turner 
retained  the  colors,  which  eventually  came  into  the  possession  of 
the  Lincoln  Museum.  Turner  stated  that  it  was  in  this  flag  Booth 
caught  his  spur. 

In  spite  of  this  and  other  evidence,  a  United  States  flag  hanging 
in  a  case  in  the  Treasury  Building,  and  showing  no  rent,  was  long 
exhibited  as  the  flag  in  question.  When  it  fell  into  acute  disre- 
pair, congressmen  interested  themselves  in  preserving  it  as  such. 
It  may  have  been  at  one  time  the  national  ensign  carried  by  the 
Treasury  Guard— each  regiment  having,  of  course,  both  national 
ensign  and  regimental  colors;  although  it  appears  to  have  been 
promoted  from  the  machinist's  room  in  the  building  to  its  later 
place  of  unwarranted  distinction.  Rhetorical  allusions  to  "Old 

46  Weekly  Chronicle,  June  10;  p.  4. 

47  Poore,  vol.  i,  pp.  192-193. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  219 

Glory"  as  the  Nemesis  of  Booth  have  undoubtedly  been  mis- 
placed. Booth's  spur  may  possibly,  as  J.  P.  Ferguson  believed,  have 
caught  in  the  large  flag  spread  like  bunting  along  the  balustrade, 
or  even  in  the  lace  curtain,  but  it  was  portrait  and  Treasury  Guard 
colors  that  joined  to  trip  him. 

What,  if  anything,  did  Booth  shout,  and  when  did  he  shout  it? 
According  to  W.  J.  Ferguson,  who  has  been  much  quoted  by  vari- 
ous writers,  he  shouted  nothing  at  all.  According  to  next  day's 
Intelligencer  he  shouted  thrice— "Sic  semper  tyrannis!"  ("This 
be  ever  the  fate  of  tyrants,"  state  motto  of  John's  beloved  Vir- 
ginia) at  the  edge  of  the  box;  "Revenge!"  as  he  crossed  the  stage; 
and  "I  have  done  it!"  as  he  disappeared.  Between  these  extremes 
is  considerable  variety.  Immediately  after  the  shot,  he  uttered  (in 
the  box),  said  Rathbone,  "some  word  which  deponent  thinks  was 
'Freedom.'  "  Eleven  witnesses  (Truman,  Hawk,  Taylor,  Emerson, 
Mrs.  Wright,  Knox,  McGowan,  J.  P.  Ferguson,  Doctor  Todd,  Ex- 
Governor  Farwell,  even  the  impervious  Mr.  Parker)  heard  him 
exclaim,  "Sic  semper  tyrannis!"  But  when?  Two  say  it  was  before 
he  vaulted;  three,  while  he  was  in  the  air;  six,  as  he  rose  to  his 
feet  on  the  stage. 

Three  of  these  also  heard  him  cry  out  something  about  the 
South— "Revenge  for  the  South!"  as  he  vaulted;  "The  South  shall 
be  free!"  or  "The  South  is  avenged!"  from  the  stage.  "Brandishing 
a  dagger,  he  shrieks  out,  'The  South  is  avenged,'  and  rushes 
through  the  scenery"— so  wrote  Miss  Chapman,  who  heard  nothing 
else.  He  "landed  on  the  stage,  brandishing  his  knife,  exclaiming 
what  sounded  to  me  like  'Revenge'  or  'Avenged'  "—thus  T.  H. 
Sherman,  who  also  heard  nothing  more.  In  all  this  evidence  there 
is  variance  sufficient  to  make  us  realize  the  swift  audacity  of  that 
crowded  moment,  unison  sufficient  to  convince  us  that  "Sic  semper 
tyrannis!"  was  indeed  no  myth.  John  Booth,  as  he  himself  later 
wrote,  did  shout  these  words  that  he  must  often  have  read  on  the 
seal  of  Virginia  blazoned  upon  the  pages  of  the  Richmond  Daily 
Whig.  But  it  is  not  likely  that  he  shouted  them,  as  he  imagined, 
before  he  fired. 

It  has  been  represented  that  on  the  fatal  April  14th  Lincoln 
had  requested  extraordinary  protection  at  the  theater  and  his  re- 


220  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

quest  nefariously  had  been  denied.  If  the  reference  is  to  Stanton's 
attitude  about  releasing  Major  Eckert  to  go  with  the  Lincolns,  it 
must  be  said  that,  besides  the  Stantons,  seven  other  persons,  in- 
cluding Robert  Lincoln,  are  known  to  have  been  invited;  and  all 
began  with  one  accord  to  make  excuse.  Robert  had  no  better  rea- 
son than  that  he  wished  to  "turn  in  early"— which,  by  the  way,  he 
did  not  do;  for  when  a  crowd  burst  into  the  Executive  Mansion 
with  the  dreadful  news  of  murder,  he  and  Major  Hay  "sat  gossip- 
ing in  an  upper  room."  48  Some  of  the  others  pleaded  that  they 
were  too  fagged  or  were  leaving  town.  Eckert,  had  he  gone,  would 
have  been  a  guest  as  would  the  others— not  a  sentry  or  a  detective. 
Even  Eckert's  friend  and  associate  David  Bates  said  it  was  idle  to 
conjecture  whether  Eckert's  presence  in  the  box  would  have  made 
any  difference.  Stanton  was  firm  in  discouraging  Lincoln's  theater- 
going, and  Eckert  respected  Stanton's  wishes. 

Lincoln  asked  for  no  further  protection  on  that  April  night 
than  that  of  Charles  Forbes,  the  footman-attendant,  and  of  a  spe- 
cial guard  such  as  had  been  provided  since  November  1864  by  a 
detail  from  the  Metropolitan  Police.  John  Parker,  to  whom  the 
duty  fell,  had  recently  been  chosen  by  Superintendent  Richards 
to  fill  a  vacancy  in  that  detail.  It  was  usual  for  the  President  to 
confirm  such  appointments,  but  Lincoln  was  in  City  Point  and  it 
appears  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  called  upon  to  act  for  him  in  this 
matter  of  household  routine.  The  draft  had  previously  interfered 
with  arrangements  in  the  Executive  Mansion,  as  we  learn  from 
Hay's  plaint  that  "William  Johnson  (cullud)  was  taken  while 
polishing  the  Executive  boots  and  rasping  the  Imperial  Abolition 
whisker.  Henry  Stoddard  is  a  conscript  bold."  49  It  was  therefore 
found  desirable  to  have  this  special  detail  exempted  from  the  draft 
and  certificates  of  appointment  were  furnished  to  the  provost 
marshal  of  the  District,  who  had  authority  in  such  matters.  Ex- 
emption was  thus  obtained  in  usual  course  for  Parker,  who  had 
previously  enlisted  at  the  time  of  the  President's  call  for  troops 
from  the  District. 

Prior  to  November  1864,  Forbes  had  been  Lincoln's  only  regu- 
lar escort.  Therefore  it  might  well  have  been  supposed  that  on  the 

48  W.  R.  Thayer,  "The  Life  of  John  Hay,"  vol.  i,  p.  219. 

49  From  a  letter  to  the  absent  Nicolay    (Aug.  7,  1863). 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  221 

night  of  April  14th,  1865,  Lincoln  was  better  protected  in  the 
theater  than  he  had  been  at  any  time  up  to  November  1864— that 
is,  during  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  war.  William  H.  Crook 
was  ready  to  accompany  the  President  that  night,  but  the  Presi- 
dent would  not  hear  of  it  and  was  quite  content  with  the  unsea- 
soned John  Parker,  of  whom  he  could  have  known  nothing  and 
who  unfortunately  was  not  at  all  of  suitable  caliber. 

Parker  duly  watched  over  the  Lincolns  and  their  guests  from 
carriage  to  box.  His  orders  (according  to  Crook)  were  then  to 
stand,  fully  armed,  in  the  little  vestibule  and  keep  any  "unauthor- 
ized person"  from  going  further.  The  theater  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  place  a  chair  there  for  the  special  guard's  convenience, 
and  Parker  evidently  occupied  it  for  a  while.  We  know  that  during 
an  intermission— Coachman  Burke  thought  it  was  after  the  first 
act— both  Parker  and  Forbes  left  their  posts,  went  out  to  get  a 
drink,  and  were  gone  for  at  least  ten  minutes.  Hence  we  need  not 
be  surprised  to  learn,  through  Parker's  own  acknowledgment  to 
Crook,  that,  hearing  the  voices  of  the  players  but  unable  to  see  the 
action,  Parker  finally  took  an  empty  seat  in  the  dress  circle.  (In 
"Through  Five  Administrations,"  Crook  was  made  to  say  that  it 
was  "at  the  front,"  but  in  the  later  "Memories  of  the  White 
House"  this  became  "the  last  row.")  Hanscom,  editor  of  the  Na- 
tional Republican,  who  came  up  to  the  dress  circle  with  a  "dis- 
patch" for  the  President,  wrote  that  at  that  time  there  was  neither 
guard,  watchman,  sentinel,  nor  usher  at  the  vestibule  door  and  he 
thought  anyone  might  have  passed.  He  was  referring,  however,  to 
the  outside  of  the  door;  he  did  not  (as  Lieutenant  Crawford 
wrongly  supposed)  go  in  and  give  the  document  to  the  President 
but  handed  it  to  Forbes,  whose  seat  was  in  the  fourth  row  of 
section  A,  immediately  in  front  of  the  door.50 

It  does  not  appear  whether  Parker  had  an  understanding  with 
Forbes,  nor  can  we  be  sure  as  to  precisely  where  he  was  when  the 
dark  man  came  edging  around  the  dress  circle.The  special  guard 
was  not  on  post— that  is  all  we  know.  It  is  possible  that  the  dark 
man  was  aware  of  this.  From  the  words  of  Captain  McGowan  or 
of  Surgeon  Todd  of  the  Montauk,  both  of  whom  sat  near,  it  is 
plain  that  he  made  no  attempt  to  sneak  in  unobserved.  On  the 

60  Republican,  June  8,  1865;  p.  2.  Plan  of  dress  circle    (McLellan  Collection). 


222  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

contrary,  he  very  deliberately  presented  a  card  to  Charles  Forbes. 
Todd  is  quite  explicit: 

...  I  turned  my  head  to  look  at  him.  He  was  still  walking  very  slow, 
and  was  near  the  box  door,  when  he  stopped,  took  a  card  from  his 
pocket,  wrote  something  on  it,  and  gave  it  to  the  usher  [Forbes],  who 
took  it  to  the  box.51 

Dr.  Charles  A.  Leale,  who  sat  (he  says)  in  the  dress  circle,  about 
forty  feet  from  the  box,  even  mentions  a  slight  commotion  at  the 
vestibule  door  and  asserts: 

With  many  others  I  looked  in  that  direction,  and  saw  a  man  en- 
deavoring to  persuade  the  reluctant  usher  [Forbes]  to  admit  him.  At 
last  he  succeeded  in  gaining  an  entrance,  after  which  the  door  was 
closed  and  the  usher  resumed  his  place.52 

Various  canards  and  gossip  quickly  found  their  way  into  the 
press.  Thus  the  Evening  Bulletin  of  Philadelphia  said:53 

A  sentinel  was  placed  in  the  passage  way  to  the  private  box  occupied 
by  the  President.  Before  the  performance  commenced,  Booth  passed 
this  sentry  by  giving  the  name  of  some  Governor.  These  facts  are  de- 
rived from  an  authentic  source. 

Even  Harper's  Magazine  for  June  said,  in  its  "Monthly  Record 
of  Current  Events": 

He  stood  for  a  few  moments  near  the  door  of  the  passage,  near  which 
was  no  one  who  knew  him.  He  then  went  to  the  door.  As  he  was  open- 
ing it,  the  sentinel  asked  him  if  he  knew  what  box  he  was  entering.  He 
coolly  replied  that  he  did;  it  was  the  box  of  the  President,  who  wished 
to  see  him.  He  entered  the  passage  and  fastened  the  door  behind  him. 

In  the  archives  at  Washington  is  a  statement  by  Herold— of  no 
more  value  than  most  of  what  poor  Davy  had  to  say— to  the  effect 
that  Booth  showed  "a  letter"  to  a  "soldier  or  officer"  who  barred 
his  way,  and  the  man  at  once  allowed  him  to  pass!  Undoubtedly 
there  always  were  men  ready  to  intrude  upon  Lincoln,  even  on 
such  occasions  as  this;  Lincoln  and  his  attendants  were  used  to 
them;  but  what  made  this  letter  a  "wand  of  magic  power"? 

51  Todd  letter,  State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin. 

62  "Lincoln's  Last  Hours";  p.  8. 

53  Apr.  17;  p.  3   (from  the  third  ed.  of  the  15th). 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  223 

Townsend  had  his  version: 

...  A  young  man,  so  precisely  resembling  the  one  described  as  J. 
Wilkes  Booth  that  he  is  asserted  to  be  the  same,  appeared  before  the 
open  door  of  the  President's  box,  and  prepared  to  enter. 

The  servant  who  attended  Mr.  Lincoln  said  politely,  "this  is  the 
President's  box,  sir,  no  one  is  permitted  to  enter."  "I  am  a  senator," 
responded  the  person,  "Mr.  Lincoln  has  sent  for  me."  The  attendant 
gave  way,  and  the  young  man  passed  into  the  box. 

Simple,  is  it  not?  But  where  did  Townsend  obtain  it?  Obviously 
not  from  John  Booth.  From  Forbes?  Forbes  was  not  so  unreserved 
with  any  other  newspaperman.  Besides,  Forbes  was  not  in  the  box 
—he  was  sitting  in  the  dress  circle,  by  the  vestibule  door,  where 
Crawford,  McGowan,  Hanscom,  Todd,  and  Leale  saw  him. 

On  May  1st,  1865,  formal  notice  was  served  upon  Parker  that 
a  charge  of  neglect  of  duty  had  been  preferred  against  him  by 
Superintendent  Richards  to  the  Board  of  Metropolitan  Police.  It 
was  specified  that  "said  Parker  was  detailed  to  attend  and  protect 
the  President  Mr  Lincoln,  that  while  the  President  was  at  Fords 
Theatre  on  the  night  of  the  14  of  April  last,  Said  Parker  allowed 
a  man  to  enter  the  Presidents  private  Box  and  Shoot  the  Presi- 
dent." Richards  and  "Chs.  Forbs  at  Presidents  House"  were 
named  as  witnesses.54 

Parker's  trial  by  the  Board  was  held,  according  to  official  state- 
ment, on  the  afternoon  of  May  3rd  at  the  Board's  office,  483  Tenth 
Street.  We  do  not  know  what  the  witnesses  testified  nor  what  de- 
fense Parker  offered.  Records  of  the  trial  are  unfortunately  miss- 
ing, with  other  records  of  the  period,  from  the  Police  Depart- 
ment's broken  files,  which  have  suffered  through  past  lack  of 
adequate  housing  and  custody.  It  is  the  honest  student,  as  Gama- 
liel Bradford  pointed  out,55  who  is  hampered  by  this  kind  of  defi- 
cit. "The  partisan  and  the  scandal-monger  remain  wholly  indif- 
ferent." All  we  know  now  is  that  the  trial  was  in  camera,  after  the 
usual  manner  of  such  procedure,  and  that  the  complaint  was  dis- 
missed on  June  2nd,  1865.  Parker,  Crook  thought,  "looked  like  a 
convicted  criminal"  next  day  and  "was  never  the  same  man  after- 
ward." 

"From  records  of  the  Metropolitan  Police  Department. 
65  "Confederate  Portraits";  p.  124. 


224  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Mrs.  Elizabeth  Keckley,  a  Negro  modiste  who  was  often  in  the 
Executive  Mansion  and  in  whom  Mary  Lincoln  seems  to  have 
confided,  says56  that  Mrs.  Lincoln,  fancying  in  her  distress  that 
Parker  had  been  involved  in  a  conspiracy,  had  him  brought  to 
her  and  furiously  accused  him  of  having  been  a  party  to  the  Presi- 
dent's murder.  "I  shall  always  believe,"  she  cried,  "that  you  are 
guilty!"  Nothing,  however,  is  known  to  justify  the  suggestion.  No 
matter  on  what  technical  grounds  he  may  have  been  acquitted, 
Parker  (like  John  M.  Lloyd,  who  also  had  been  a  member  of  the 
force)  was  feckless  and  drunken,  and  utterly  wanted  Crook's  high 
sense  of  responsibility.  His  general  history  as  an  officer  was  unde- 
niably bad  and  must  have  weighed  against  him  when  at  last  in 
1868  he  was  summarily  dismissed  for  sleeping  while  on  duty.  But 
that  he  was  a  conspirator  or  in  the  pay  of  conspirators,  there  is 
neither  evidence  nor  likelihood. 

Not  much  can  be  said  for  the  attendant  Charles  Forbes.  He 
made,  not  at  the  time  but  so  late  as  September  17th,  1892,  when 
he  appears  to  have  been  living  in  Washington,  an  affidavit  whose 
whole  effect  is  to  shake  confidence  in  the  man's  essential  trust- 
worthiness. For  example,  he  swears  that  Mrs.  Lincoln,  Miss  Harris, 
and  Major  Rathbone  went  together  from  the  Executive  Mansion 
to  the  theater,  and  that  the  carriage  then  was  sent  back  for  the 
President.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  know  that  no  less  than  five  per- 
sons saw  the  President  with  Mrs.  Lincoln  in  the  carriage  as  it  was 
driven  from  the  Executive  Mansion  to  call  for  Miss  Harris  and 
her  fiance*  at  Senator  Harris'  residence  (Fifteenth  and  H  Streets). 

This  incidentally  disposes  of  Forbes'  assertion  that  the  last  bit 
of  writing  Lincoln  did  was  a  signature  on  a  photograph  at  Forbes' 
request.  Furthermore,  the  statement  made  by  Forbes  that  he  "was 
in  the  box  when  the  assassin  fired  his  fatal  shot"  is  not  only  im- 
plicitly contradicted  by  eyewitnesses  but  categorically  denied  by 
Major  Rathbone's  affidavit,  sworn  to  on  April  17th,  1865,  which 
says  the  box  "was  occupied  by  the  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
Miss  Harris  and  this  deponent,  and  by  no  other  person."  (A  popu- 
lar history  of  the  United  States  has  Tad  in  the  box  at  Ford's, 
though  he  is  known  to  have  been  at  Grover's,  viewing  "Aladdin.") 

""Behind  the  Scenes";  pp.  193-195. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  225 

Parker's  dereliction  must  be  conceded.  Crook  all  his  days  la- 
mented that  in  the  hour  of  need  one  of  the  little  group  of  special 
officers  had  failed  the  President.  But  we  also  may  ask:  Why  was 
Charles  Forbes  so  remiss  as  to  grant  entrance  to  the  dark  man, 
whose  wild  appearance  and  restive  behavior  already  had  caused 
many  eyes  to  follow  him?  We  need  not  "hint  a  shame."  Both 
Parker  and  Forbes  belonged  to  the  President's  immediate  house- 
hold, with  which  Edwin  M.  Stanton  had  nothing  to  do.  For 
Parker's  appointment  to  the  special  guard  the  head  of  the  Met- 
ropolitan Police  was  directly  responsible. 

There  was  a  slight  interruption  in  telegraphic  service  from 
Washington  during  that  terrible  April  night.  Inasmuch  as  em- 
phasis has  been  laid  on  this  interruption  as  a  suspicious  circum- 
stance, it  may  be  well  to  refer  to  the  examination  of  T.  T.  Eckert, 
before  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  May  30th,  1867.  (Eckert, 
it  will  be  remembered,  was  chief  of  the  War  Department's  tele- 
graph staff  at  the  time  of  the  murder.) 

Q.  Did  you  have  any  knowledge  of  the  telegraph  lines  at  or  about 
the  time  of  the  assassination  of  President  Lincoln? 

A.  I  did. 

Q.  Was  there  any  interruption  of  the  lines  that  night? 

A.  Yes,  sir. 

Q.  What  was  it? 

A.  It  was  my  impression  at  the  time  [that]  they  were  cut,  but  we  got 
circuit  again  very  early  the  next  morning.  The  manager  of  the  Com- 
mercial office  reported  the  cause  to  have  been  the  crossing  of  wires  in 
main  batteries.  Throwing  a  ground  wire  over  the  main  wires  would 
have  caused  the  same  trouble,  and  taking  it  off  would  have  put  it  in 
ordinary  working  condition. 

Q.  Was  there  an  investigation  into  what  was  the  real  cause  of  the 
difficulty? 

A.  No,  sir.  It  did  not  at  the  time  seem  to  be  sufficiently  important, 
as  the  interruption  only  continued  about  two  hours.  I  was  so  full  of 
business  of  almost  every  character  that  I  could  not  give  it  my  personal 
attention.  The  interruption  was  only  of  a  portion  of  the  lines  between 
Washington  and  Baltimore.  We  worked  our  City  Point  line  all  the 
time. 

Q.  Do  you  know  whether  the  Commercial  lines  were  interrupted  at 
that  time? 


226  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

A.  Yes,  sir.  It  was  only  the  Commercial  lines  that  were  interrupted; 
it  was  in  the  Commercial  office  and  not  in  the  War  Department 
office.  .  .  .57 

The  notion  that  "government  experts,"  under  the  direction  of 
Stanton  or  Major  Eckert  or  both  of  them,  tampered  with  commer- 
cial telegraph  lines,  is  utterly  frivolous.  It  is  on  a  par  with  the 
statement  of  a  trashy  compilation  issued  soon  afterward  that  at 
exactly  twenty  minutes  after  ten  on  the  night  of  April  14th 
twenty-two  "conspirators"  severed  twenty-two  wires  leading  from 
the  War  Department  to  forts  and  outposts. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  telegraph  was  in  1865  a  com- 
paratively recent  invention,  the  first  line— between  Washington 
and  Baltimore— having  been  opened  in  1844.  In  March  1857 
Charles  A.  Tinker,  then  operator  in  the  Tazewell  House,  Pekin, 
Illinois,  and  later  one  of  the  War  Department's  cipher  operators 
during  the  Civil  War,  had  explained  to  Abraham  Lincoln  the 
practical  workings  of  "the  new  and  mysterious  force."  On  March 
5th,  1865— the  day  after  Lincoln's  second  inaugural— messages  were 
sent  direct  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco,  and  this  was  con- 
sidered a  remarkable  feat,  the  length  of  wire  being  the  greatest 
ever  worked  over  in  one  circuit.  "The  wires  worked  well,"  com- 
mented the  Intelligencer,  "though  it  rained  at  several  points  on 
the  line."  Thomas  A.  Edison  gave  numerous  amusing  reminis- 
cences of  an  operator's  trials  and  difficulties  in  those  days  of  faulty 
equipment,  when  reception  was  at  times  so  interrupted  that  he 
had  to  conjecture  or  invent  one-fifth  of  the  "press  report."  Tem- 
porary suspension  during  the  night  of  April  14th  was  purely  a 
coincidence,  without  sinister  meaning,  and  Eckert's  statements 
make  the  circumstances  sufficiently  intelligible. 

The  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  dramatic  high  spot  of 
the  nation's  history,  leaving  the  performance  upon  the  stage  "a 
vague  phantasmagoria"  in  the  memories  of  those  that  saw  and 
heard  it,  and  the  performers  "the  thinnest  of  specters." 

The  awful  tragedy  in  the  box  makes  everything  else  seem  pale  and 
unreal.  Here  were  five  human  beings  in  a  narrow  space — the  greatest 
man  of  his  time,  in  the  glory  of  the  most  stupendous  success  in  our 

CT  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session,  House  Report  No.  7;  p.  673. 


TERROR  BY  NIGHT  227 

history,  the  idolized  chief  of  a  nation  already  mighty,  with  illimitable 
vistas  of  grandeur  to  come;  his  beloved  wife,  proud  and  happy;  a  pair 
of  betrothed  lovers,  with  all  the  promise  of  felicity  that  youth,  social 
position,  and  wealth  could  give  them;  and  this  young  actor,  handsome 
as  Endymion  upon  Latmos,  the  pet  of  his  little  world.  The  glitter  of 
fame,  happiness,  and  ease  was  upon  the  entire  group,  but  in  an  instant 
everything  was  to  be  changed  with  the  blinding  swiftness  of  enchant- 
ment. Quick  death  was  to  come  on  the  central  figure  of  that  company 
— the  central  figure,  we  believe,  of  the  great  and  good  men  of  the 
century.  Over  all  the  rest  the  blackest  fates  hovered  menacingly — fates 
from  which  a  mother  might  pray  that  kindly  death  would  save  her 
children  in  their  infancy.  One  was  to  wander  with  the  stain  of  murder 
on  his  soul,  with  the  curses  of  a  world  upon  his  name,  with  a  price  set 
upon  his  head  .  .  .;  the  stricken  wife  was  to  pass  the  rest  of  her  days 
in  melancholy  and  madness;  of  those  two  young  lovers,  one  was  to 
slay  the  other,  and  then  end  his  life  a  raving  maniac.58 

To  a  certain  occasion  when  the  natives  struck  banefully  at  them 
in  the  darkness,  the  old  Spanish  conquerors  of  Mexico  gave  the 
name  Noche  Triste,  or  sorrowful  night.  The  night  of  Good  Friday 
in  1865  was  the  Noche  Triste  of  the  national  capital,  bringing  in 
its  train  " Black  Easter"  to  the  city  and  to  loyal  hearts  throughout 
the  North. 

08  Nicolay  and  Hay,  vol.  x,  p.  295. 


Ten 


FLIGHT'S  END 


WHERE  was  John  Booth?  Apparently  in  a  dozen  places.  He 
was  seen  repeatedly  in  Pennsylvania— on  a  train  from  Reading  to 
Pottsville,  at  Tamaqua,  at  Greensburg,  at  Titusville.  The  man  at 
Greensburg,  a  Pittsburg  dispatch  said  later,  "is  reliably  stated 
not  to  be  him."  At  Titusville  the  suspected  person  turned  out  to 
be  John  G.  Stevens  of  Trenton.  A  mob  of  townsfolk  was  bent  on 
shooting  or  hanging  him,  but  after  he  had  been  identified  by  de- 
tectives he  made  a  speech  from  a  window  of  the  hotel.  While 
traveling,  J.  L.  Chapman  of  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts,  was  de- 
tained on  three  separate  occasions  in  one  day  because  of  a  strong 
resemblance  to  the  fugitive.  Daniel  Hughes,  a  Brooklyn  saloon- 
keeper, thought  Booth  had  been  in  the  Hughes  establishment. 
The  Chicago  police  apprehended  J.  F.  Nagle,  an  actor  at  Mc- 
Vicker's  Theater. 

At  Urbana,  Ohio,  a  mustached  gentleman  said  to  the  bellhop 
who  was  ushering  him  to  a  room  in  the  hotel:  "Is  this  window  on 
an  alley,  or  is  there  any  way  to  get  out  of  here?"  The  bellhop 
forthwith  decided  that  the  man  (who  later  proved  to  be  a  railway 
official  visiting  the  town  on  business)  must  unquestionably  be 
Booth,  and  for  a  time  all  Urbana  was  in  an  uproar.  An  officer  on 
a  gunboat  at  Point  Lookout,  Maryland,  was  reported  to  have  said 
that  Booth  and  about  twenty  other  conspirators  were  at  large  in 
St.  Mary's  County  and  that  a  cavalry  squad  had  had  a  "collision" 
with  them.  Two  men  and  a  woman  were  arrested  at  Norfolk, 
Virginia,  and  a  man  was  followed  by  detectives  from  Detroit  to 
St.  Mary's,  Ontario,  and  there  taken  into  custody.  Fifteen  miles 
south  of  Baltimore  a  man  was  captured  who  "answered  almost 

228 


FLIGHT'S  END  229 

identically  the  description  of  Booth."  Preparations  were  accord- 
ingly made  for  his  safekeeping  in  Washington,  "but  it  was  sub- 
sequently ascertained  that  the  person  arrested,  although  bearing  so 
singular  a  resemblance  to  the  criminal,  was  quite  another  party." 

In  his  "Fifty  Years  in  Theatrical  Management,"  M.  B.  Leavitt 
tells  that  he  was  thought  by  many  to  bear  "a  striking  facial  and 
physical  resemblance"  to  Booth,  who  as  an  actor  had  impressed 
him  profoundly.  "I  was,  perhaps,  four  or  five  years  younger  than 
Booth,"  Leavitt  says,  "and  he  was  slightly  taller,  but  in  a  gen- 
eral way  we  were  enough  alike  to  have  been  mistaken  for  each 
other.  On  one  occasion,  this  likeness  came  nearly  getting  me 
mobbed  by  an  excited  crowd,  who  thought  that  in  me  they  had 
the  slayer  of  President  Lincoln  among  them."  This  was  at  East- 
port,  Maine,  where  he  had  arrived  with  a  minstrel  troupe  for  a 
two  nights'  engagement.  He  says  he  was  followed  to  the  hotel  by  a 
throng  that  refused  to  disperse  until  he  had  made  a  speech  from 
the  veranda.1 

Leavitt  in  his  book  sets  his  portrait  beside  that  of  John  Booth. 
As  we  compare  them,  we  realize  how  superficial  was  the  "re- 
semblance" needed  to  persuade  those  whose  knowledge  of  Booth's 
appearance  was  gained  from  crude  engravings  or  printed  descrip- 
tions. 

The  Washington  Weekly  Chronicle  said  editorially:2 

"So  thoroughly  was  the  national  vigilance  aroused  .  .  .  that  no 
man  who  bore  a  remote  resemblance  to  the  doomed  assassin  could 
safely  venture  beyond  the  precincts  of  his  immediate  home.  .  .  . 
In  Pennsylvania  half-a-dozen  innocent  parties  have  been  held  for 
'identification;'  and  it  is  impossible  to  tell  how  many  men  of  the 
proscribed  physiognomy  have  fallen  under  the  ban  of  suspicion. 
This  sharp  scrutiny  originated  in  an  earnest  and  patriotic  motive 
that  cannot  be  too  highly  commended.  ...  It  must  be  acknowl- 
edged, however,  that  in  some  cases  there  have  been  unwise  and 
unjust  manifestations  of  the  popular  feeling." 

Gossip  was  that  Booth  had  been  "overtaken  some  miles  out  on 
the  road  leading  from  Seventh  street  road"— that  a  "prominent 
military  officer"  had  obtained  the  Navy  Department's  consent  to 

lpP-  H9>  154-155- 

2  May  13,  1865. 


230  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

allow  the  miscreant  to  be  placed  on  a  gunboat.  All  this  was  later 
contradicted.  A  dispatch  said  it  was  "pretty  certain"  that  the  slayer 
had  been  traced  to  the  wretched  little  county  town  of  Port 
Tobacco  in  Charles  County,  Maryland,  "whence  he  probably  in- 
tends to  cross  into  Virginia."  It  was  admitted,  however,  that 
Marylanders  who  had  been  arrested  did  not  "throw  much  light 
upon  the  subject."  3 

Patrol  boats  of  varied  sorts  were  ordered  to  the  lower  Potomac, 
the  Patuxent,  and  the  mouth  of  Chesapeake  Bay.  They  were  to 
overhaul  and  fully  examine  all  suspicious-looking  craft.  Fisher- 
men were  not  to  be  allowed  to  cross  the  Potomac  in  either  direc- 
tion between  the  Maryland  and  Virginia  shores.  The  Philadelphia 
Evening  Bulletin  of  Monday  the  17th  had  this  item: 

At  General  Augur's  headquarters,  at  noon,  there  was  a  very  confident 
hope  that  Booth  will  be  arrested  before  to-morrow.  The  reasons  for  this 
belief  it  would  be  imprudent  to  publish. 

On  orders  from  Washington,  all  steamers  and  railway  trains 
leaving  New  York  were  searched,  and  a  sharp  lookout  was  kept  on 
passengers  entering  New  York  from  southward.  "The  detectives," 
said  the  Evening  Post,  "are  firm  in  their  belief  that  Booth  has 
not  arrived  here,  and  incline  to  the  opinion  that  he  is  still  in 
Washington." 

The  notion  that  he  might  be  within  the  limits  of  the  District 
had  been  growing  in  many  quarters.  It  was  deemed  remarkable 
that  he  continued  to  elude  a  host  of  detectives,  both  professional 
and  amateur.  Some  guessed  that  he  might  have  escaped  to  such 
Confederate  lines  as  remained— might  have  found  refuge  with 
Mosby  the  guerrilla,  who  no  doubt  had  been  acting  in  concert 
with  him.  Yet  hearsay  was  that  an  interview  had  taken  place  at 
Berryville,  east  of  Winchester,  between  Mosby  and  General 
Chapman  (First  division,  19th  army  corps)  and  officers  of  the  re- 
spective commands;  that  Mosby  and  his  officers  denounced  Lin- 
coln's murder  as  a  calamity  to  the  South,  and  declared  that  if 
apprehended  within  their  lines  the  murderer  would  promptly  be 
handed  over  to  the  Federal  authorities.  Hence  many  turned  to 

3  Philadelphia   Inquirer,  Apr.    18.    Intelligencer,  Apr.  20. 


FLIGHT'S  END  231 

the  argument  that  Booth  lurked  in  some  hiding  place  in  Wash- 
ington. 

True,  Sergt.  Silas  T.  Cobb,  on  duty  that  Friday  night  at  the 
Washington  end  of  the  Navy  Yard  bridge,  had  his  story  of  the 
two  horsemen  who  crossed  into  the  newly  rising  light  of  the 
moon.  The  first,  he  said,  rode  a  bay  "with  a  shining  skin"— a 
horse  that  had  been  pressed  to  its  full  speed.  The  sentry  challenged 
him,  for  it  was  now  after  ten-thirty  and  the  latest  orders  were 
that  after  nine  in  the  evening  no  one  should  be  passed  without 
the  approval  of  the  sergeant  of  the  guard.  For  the  most  part,  those 
allowed  to  cross  were  teamsters  or  persons  on  necessary  business. 
The  rider  seemed  calm  enough  to  the  eye  of  Sergeant  Cobb,  who 
gave  an  account  of  a  dialogue  something  like  this: 

"Who  are  you,  sir?" 

"My  name  is  Booth." 

"Where  are  you  from?" 

"The  city." 

"Where  are  you  going?" 

"I'm  going  home." 

"And  where  is  your  home?" 

"In  Charles"  [that  is,  in  Charles  County]. 

"What  town?" 

"I  don't  live  in  any  town." 

"Oh,  you  must  live  in  some  town." 

"No,  I  live  close  to  Bean  town  but  not  in  the  town." 

"Why  are  you  out  so  late?  Don't  you  know  you're  not  allowed  to 
pass  after  nine  o'clock?" 

"That's  news  to  me.  I  had  business  in  the  city  and  thought  if  I 
waited  I'd  have  the  moon  to  ride  home  by." 

There  were  three  or  four  minutes  of  this.  The  horseman  was 
quiet  and  conciliatory.  In  telling  the  story,  Cobb  said:  "I  thought 
he  was  a  proper  person  to  pass— and  I  passed  him." 

In  not  more  than  ten  minutes  a  second  rider  was  halted  at 
the  bridge  and  the  Sergeant  questioned  him.  He  replied  that  his 
name  was  Smith,  he  was  going  home,  and  his  home  was  in  White 
Plains,  another  hamlet  in  Charles  County.  When  Cobb  asked  him 
why  he  was  out  so  late,  he  answered  something  to  the  effect 
that  he  had  been  in  bad  company,  speaking  in  so  flippant  a  man- 
ner that  the  Sergeant  did  not  at  first  pass  him  but  brought  him 


232  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

up  before  the  guardhouse  door.  There  the  light  fell  squarely 
across  his  face  and  on  the  medium-sized  roan  horse.  The  inspec- 
tion must  have  convinced  the  Sergeant  that  this  was  some  harm- 
less fellow  who  might  better  be  in  White  Plains  than  roaming 
the  streets  of  Washington;  and  he,  too,  was  passed. 

A  while  afterward,  a  third  horseman  rode  up  and  inquired 
of  Sergeant  Cobb  whether  a  roan  horse  had  crossed  the  bridge, 
describing  horse,  saddle,  and  bridle  with  particularity  before 
saying  anything  about  a  rider.  Yes,  such  a  horse  had  crossed,  Cobb 
told  him,  and  the  rider  had  given  his  name  as  Smith.  The  third 
horseman  appears  not  to  have  been  catechised  as  to  his  name  or 
what  had  brought  him  there.  Was  it  possible  for  him  to  cross? 
he  asked.  Yes,  Cobb  said— possible  to  cross  but  impossible  to  get 
back.  The  Sergeant  evidently  felt  that  this  cavalcade  over  his 
bridge  might  as  well  end;  and,  besides,  the  third  man  did  not 
reveal  any  business  that  struck  Cobb  as  important,  but  turned  his 
horse  around  and  rode  away  slowly  up  Eleventh  Street.  This 
was  Silas  Cobb's  narrative  of  the  two  horsemen  who  crossed— and 
of  the  third  horseman,  who  said,  "I  won't  go." 

At  about  one  o'clock  on  Friday  afternoon,  Davy  Herold  and 
beetle-browed  George  Atzerodt,  the  carriagewright  of  Port  To- 
bacco, had  gone  to  Thompson  Nailor's  livery  stable  at  299  E 
Street  (north).  Atzerodt  had  with  him  a  bay  mare  that  he  left 
at  the  stable;  and  Davy  engaged  a  light-colored  roan  horse  for 
about  four  o'clock  that  same  afternoon.  John  Fletcher,  Nailor's 
foreman,  already  was  acquainted  with  both  Atzerodt  and  Herold. 
On  April  3rd,  Atzerodt  and  another  man  (presumably  John  Sur- 
ratt)  had  brought  two  horses  to  be  put  up  at  Nailor's.  These 
horses,  though  they  had  been  claimed  by  Surratt,  really  belonged 
to  Booth's  string,  and  Booth  had  paid  for  their  keep  at  various 
stables.  One  of  them  was  the  dark  bay,  blind  of  an  eye,  which 
Booth  had  purchased  from  George  Gardiner,  Dr.  Samuel  Mudd's 
neighbor  down  in  Charles  County.  Atzerodt  had  taken  this  horse 
away  on  April  12th,  and  the  other  was  sold.  While  the  animals 
were  stabled  at  Nailor's,  Herold  had  frequently  gone  there  to 
inquire  for  Atzerodt,  and  Fletcher  had  seen  Herold  and  At- 
zerodt riding  together. 


FLIGHT'S  END  233 

When  Herold  came  for  the  roan  at  four,  Fletcher  told  him  not 
to  keep  the  horse  out  later  than  nine.  At  ten,  Atzerodt  came  for 
the  mare. 

"If  this  thing  happens  tonight,"  he  said  to  Fletcher,  with  boozy 
incoherence,  "you'll  get  a  present." 

"Your  friend,"  Fletcher  reminded  him,  "is  staying  out  very  late 
with  our  horse." 

"Oh,  he'll  be  back  after  a  while,"  Atzerodt  replied,  and  rode 
away  to  the  Kirkwood  House. 

But  Herold  did  not  return;  and,  convinced  that  the  roan  would 
be  stolen,  the  foreman  went  out  to  look  around  the  streets.  At 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  Fourteenth  Street  he  saw  Davy  and 
the  missing  property,  and  he  shouted:  "You  get  off  that  horse 
now— you've  had  it  long  enough!"  Herold  paid  no  attention. 

.  .  .  He  put  spurs  into  the  horse  and  went  up  Fourteenth  street  as 
fast  as  the  horse  could  go.  I  kept  sight  of  him  until  he  turned  east  into 
F  street.  Then  I  returned  back  to  the  stable,  and  I  saddled  and  bridled 
a  horse  and  went  after  him.  I  knew  that  Atzerodt  had  to  cross  the  Navy 
Yard  bridge,  and  that  this  Herold  was  an  acquaintance  of  his.  I  knew 
he  [Atzerodt]  had  to  cross  the  bridge  to  go  to  his  home  [in  Port  To- 
bacco].4 

So,  on  this  chance,  Fletcher  had  ridden  down  to  the  head  of 
the  Navy  Yard  bridge  at  Eleventh  Street  (east).  He  had  urged 
his  horse  to  the  bridge,  but  now  he  rode  slowly  back  into  town; 
and,  in  a  forlorn  hope,  he  asked  the  foreman  of  another  stable 
whether  the  roan  had  been  brought  there. 

"No,"  said  the  man,  "but  you'd  better  keep  in,  for  President 
Lincoln  has  been  shot  and  Secretary  Seward  is  almost  dead." 

Whereupon  Fletcher  made  for  his  own  stable,  put  the  horse  in 
its  stall,  and  sat  down  just  outside  the  office  window.  Among  the 
excited  people  that  drifted  by,  he  heard  somebody  saying  that  "it 
was  men  riding  on  horseback  that  had  shot  President  Lincoln." 
This  roused  anew  the  weary  Fletcher's  suspicions.  He  walked  out 
to  Fourteenth  Street  and  inquired  of  a  cavalry  sergeant  whether 
any  stray  horses  had  been  picked  up.  The  man  said  they  had,  and 
suggested  that  Fletcher  go  to  the  headquarters  of  the  Metropolitan 
Police  on  Tenth  Street.  Fletcher  accordingly  reported  at  head- 

4  Fletcher's  testimony  at  the  Surratt  Trial    ("The  Reporter,"  vol.  iii,  p.  7). 


234  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

quarters,  483  Tenth  Street,  and  told  his  story;  and  they  set  down 
his  name  among  "Names  of  the  Witnesses  who  made  Statements 
relative  to  the  Assassination  of  the  President." 

From  there  a  detective  took  him  to  General  Augur's  head- 
quarters, where  he  gave  the  General  a  description  of  Herold.  By 
that  time  it  was  two  o'clock  of  the  morning  of  April  15th.  Beside 
Augur's  desk  lay  a  saddle  and  a  bridle,  and  Fletcher  knew  them. 
They  had  been  on  the  dark-bay  horse,  blind  of  one  eye,  when 
Atzerodt  took  it  from  Nailor's  on  April  12th.  Fletcher  told  Gen- 
eral Augur  about  this,  too,  but  had  trouble  with  Atzerodt's  name, 
which  (or  at  least  some  form  of  it)  had  to  be  obtained  from 
Nailor's  files. 

It  seemed  that  a  Lieutenant  Toffey  had  found  the  dark-bay 
horse  near  Lincoln  Branch  Barracks,  some  three  quarters  of  a 
mile  east  of  the  Capitol,  and  had  brought  it  to  the  headquarters 
of  General  Augur.  But  this  was  not  the  horse  on  which  either 
Herold  or  Atzerodt  had  ridden  away  from  Nailor's  stable,  and  the 
Branch  Barracks  were  a  mile  from  the  Navy  Yard  bridge.  Who 
had  been  riding  the  horse,  and  why  had  it  been  abandoned?  It 
was  all  a  puzzle— a  puzzle  that  John  Fletcher,  his  adventure  over, 
resigned  to  General  Augur  and  the  General's  associates. 

Silas  Cobb's  account  of  the  three  horsemen  might  mean  much 
—or  little.  Herold  had  taken  the  roan  horse  from  Nailor's  stable; 
but  was  he  certainly  the  second  rider  across  the  Navy  Yard  bridge? 
Was  it  even  positive  that  Booth  was  the  first?  On  Tuesday  the 
18th  the  Intelligencer,  Washington's  most  conservative  newspaper, 
had  this  front-page  article: 

HIGHLY  IMPORTANT. 


THE  ASSASSIN'S  COAT  FOUND. 


Yesterday  a  light-colored  sack  coat,  fully  answering  to  the  description 
of  that  worn  by  the  attempted  assassin  of  the  Messrs.  Seward,  was  found 
near  Fort  Saratoga,  which  is  situated  on  the  north  of  the  city,  not  far 
from  the  Soldiers'  Home.  The  coat  was  stained  with  blood.  In  one  of 
the  pockets  were  found  a  false  mustache  and  a  small  brush. 

The  coat  and  the  articles  found  in  it  were  delivered  at  the  Provost 


FLIGHT'S  END  235 

Marshal's  office.  It  is  believed  that  this  discovery  will  furnish  an  addi- 
tional clue  to  the  route  of  the  criminal.  The  circumstances  would  seem 
to  throw  discredit  on  the  commonly  received  theory,  (at  least  as  to  one 
of  them,)  that  the  suspected  parties  crossed  the  Navy  Yard  bridge  on 
Friday  night. 

To  be  sure,  the  first  horseman  had  given  his  name  as  Booth; 
but  it  was  almost  incredible  that  the  real  Booth  would  do  that. 
A  more  plausible  view  was  expressed  in  the  conservative  Evening 
Post  of  New  York,  which  printed  this  from  its  regular  Washington 
correspondent:5 

There  are  many  intelligent  persons  who  believe  that  Booth  still  lurks 
in  some  hiding  place  in  Washington.  The  detectives  generally  believe 
that  the  horsemen  who  rode  in  haste  over  the  Navy  Yard  bridge  on  the 
fatal  Friday  night  were  decoys,  and  that  Booth  was  not  one  of  them. 

It  was  openly  asserted  in  Washington's  Intelligencer  and  Repub- 
lican (Hanscom's  paper)  that  Booth  was  hiding  in  the  District 
and  that  every  house  within  its  borders  ought  to  be  searched. 
Superintendent  Richards  was  of  the  same  mind,  but  complained 
that  he  had  no  authority  and  that  Mayor  Wallach  gave  him  no 
support.  To  this  the  Mayor  replied  that,  as  head  of  the  Metropoli- 
tan Police,  Richards  took  orders  not  from  him  but  from  the 
Police  Commissioners. 

A  letter  from  Boston  informed  the  Secretary  of  War  that  Booth 
was  secreted  in  Washington  "up  stairs  in  a  concealed  closet"  but 
at  times  went  out  "in  the  disguise  of  a  negro."  From  New  York, 
"Justice"  wrote  to  suggest:  "Perhaps  he  is  in  bed,  with  the  cap 
and  nightgown  of  a  female,  feigning  sickness."  The  notion  of 
feminine  disguise  was  advanced  by  many,  and  various  changes 
were  rung  upon  it.  A  Philadelphian  urged  that  Ford's  Theatre  be 
ransacked  for  hiding  places  and  for  secret  passages  to  neighbor- 
ing houses.6 

The  Mayor  ordered  that  "all  drinking  saloons  and  places  where 
liquor  is  sold"  be  closed  and  remain  closed  until  after  the  Presi- 
dent's funeral.  Artemus  Ward  had  written: 

Washington,  D.  C,  is  the  capital  of  our  once  happy  country,  if  I  may 
be  allowed  to  koin  a  frase.  The  D.  C.  stands  for  Desprit  Cusses,  a 

BApr.  21;  p.  3. 

6  Baker,  "History  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service";  pp.  548-554. 


236  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

numerosity  of  which  abounds  here,  the  most  of  whom  persess  a  Ro- 
mantic pashun  for  gratitious  drinks. 

Knowing  his  city,  the  Mayor  was  determined  to  keep  it  for  the 
time  being  as  sober  as  possible.  The  Intelligencer  observed: 

THE  HABILIMENTS  OF  MOURNING  are  everywhere  exhibited, 
and  the  deep  grief  universally  felt  is  perhaps  nowhere  made  more 
manifest.  Scarcely  a  window  or  doorway  in  the  city  but  is  covered  with 
crape.  Yet  these  outside  symbols  but  faintly  express  the  poignant  re- 
gret and  profound  humiliation  of  the  community  at  an  act  so  atrocious. 

Each  day,  mingled  with  announcements  of  Thoreau's  "Cape  Cod" 
and  the  second  volume  of  Lyman  Beecher's  autobiography,  the 
Washington  press  carried  advertisements  of  black  crepe,  black 
alpaca,  black  mousseline,  black  gloves. 

Called  from  New  York  by  Stanton,  Col.  L.  C.  Baker,  head  of 
the  National  Detective  Police,  arrived  in  Washington  on  Sun- 
day morning,  April  16th.  "Well,  Baker,"  was  Stanton's  greeting, 
"they  have  now  performed  what  they  have  long  threatened  to  do. 
You  must  go  to  work."  Those  who  already  were  in  the  field  were 
not  at  all  disposed  to  share  with  Baker  the  clues  they  might  have. 
The  trail  was  cold  and  he  must  work  alone. 

Colonel  Baker  had  many  enemies  in  his  own  day  and  by  cer- 
tain subsequent  writers  has  been  presented  as  an  unrelieved  vil- 
lain. As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  a  skillful  and  fearless  detective  but 
by  nature  high-strung,  waspish,  and  aggressive;  in  the  performance 
of  his  thankless  duties  he  incurred  the  dislike  of  many  to  whom 
he  refused  to  show  favor.  Under  emergency  conditions  Baker  hit 
sharply  and  effectively  at  bounty-broking  and  bounty-jumping,  at 
gross  irregularities  in  the  army,  at  miscellaneous  evils.  He  stepped 
upon  many  toes,  was  accused  of  being  another  Fouche,  wrote  in 
his  own  defense  the  badly  titled  "History  of  the  United  States 
Secret  Service."  When  quick  action  was  desired  and  others 
seemed  resourceless,  it  was  to  Baker  that  Stanton  turned. 

Others  of  the  alleged  conspirators  were  rounded  up— Arnold 
was  brought  from  Old  Point,  O'Laughlin  was  arrested  in  Balti- 
more; Atzerodt,  who  had  been  deputed  to  kill  Vice-President 
Johnson  and  had  registered  at  the  Kirkwood  House,  lacked  stom- 
ach for  this  enterprise  and,  after  wandering  aimlessly  about  the 


FLIGHT'S  END  237 

city,  betook  himself  to  Montgomery  County,  Maryland,  where  he 
was  seized  at  the  house  of  a  cousin  named  Richter.  Spangler  was 
easily  found  at  his  boarding-house. 

Mrs.  Surratt  and  all  under  her  roof  were  arrested  in  the  dead 
of  night,  and,  as  it  strangely  happened,  Paine  was  apprehended 
at  the  same  time  and  place.  While  the  officers  were  within,  Paine 
came  to  the  door.  He  carried  a  pickax  on  his  shoulder  and  wore 
a  cap  improvised  from  the  sleeve  of  a  shirt  or  a  fragment  of  un- 
derwear. Mrs.  Surratt  had  sent  for  him,  he  said,  to  dig  a  gutter, 
and  he  had  come  to  inquire  when  he  should  start  work  in  the 
morning.  According  to  the  officer  in  charge,  Mrs.  Surratt  denied 
that  she  knew  the  man  or  had  sent  for  him;  and  he  was  arrested 
as  a  suspicious  character.  Not  until  later  did  the  authorities  dis- 
cover that  they  had  bagged  a  prize— the  formidable  desperado  who 
had  swept  through  the  house  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  leaving 
wreck  behind.  It  was  Paine  who  had  ridden  and  then  abandoned 
the  bay  horse,  blind  of  one  eye,  that  Lieutenant  Toffey  had  found 
near  Lincoln  Branch  Barracks.  He  seems  to  have  been  without 
funds,  and  he  drifted  back  to  Washington,  only  to  walk  into  the 
open  arms  of  the  War  Department. 

Weichmann,  eventually  a  storm  center  of  discussion,  appears 
to  have  saved  his  life  by  now  becoming  the  prosecution's  chief 
witness.  One  of  the  other  inmates  of  Carroll  prison  said  to  him 
in  jest: 

"Weichmann,  do  you  know  that  some  one  in  room  37  is  going 
to  be  taken  out  tonight  and  hanged?" 

Feeling  his  neck,  Weichmann  answered,  "I  am  in  37— and  if  it 
was  me,  I  would  rather  be  shot  than  hanged!" 

Tom  Smart,  one  of  the  deputy  keepers  at  Carroll  prison,  said 
that  Weichmann  was  the  most  frightened  witness  he  had  ever 
seen  and  probably  knew  as  much  about  the  murder  as  any  one 
of  the  "conspirators."  Whatever  we  may  think  of  this,  we  cannot 
wholly  disregard  the  words  of  the  Confederate  emissary  Augustus 
Howell,  who  in  an  unpublished  holograph  statement  wrote: 

.  .  .  Weichman  allso  states  he  never  gave  any  information  from  his 
Books — that  allso  is  false,  he  gave  me  information  and  said  it  came 
from  his  Books  in  his  office  ...  he  obtained  his  office  in  the  War  De- 
partment with  the  express  understanding  with  Surratt  that  he  W 


238  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

was  to  furnish  Surratt  with  all  information  that  came  under  his  notice 
from  time  to  time  to  be  transmitted  South — and  he  did  furnish  it  yet 
he  loved  his  Government.  .  .  . 

he  .  .  .  recd  dispatches  for  Surratt  from  Booth  and  took  charge  of 
the  whole  business  [of  the  abduction  plot]  in  Surratts  absence  yet  he 
knew  nothing  of  their  intention  or  their  business,  now  will  any  Sensi- 
ble man  contend  that  Booth  would  have  trusted  a  matter  of  such  great 
importance  and  Risk  to  himself  in  Weichmans  hands  unless  he  had  a 
perfect  understanding  about  the  matter  with  Weichman  7 

Edward  V.  Murphy  of  Washington,  afterward  for  many  years 
official  reporter  to  the  United  States  Senate,  was  a  member  of  the 
Military  Commission's  official  reporting  staff  at  the  Conspiracy 
Trial.  On  the  basis  of  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  day-by- 
day  course  of  the  trial,  he  believed  Mrs.  Surratt  innocent,  and 
Atzerodt  and  Paine  the  only  defendants  likely  to  have  been  sen- 
tenced to  death  in  a  civil  court.  He  knew  Weichmann,  with  whom 
he  had  attended  the  Philadelphia  High  School,  and  recognized 
him  in  the  office  of  Col.  H.  L.  Burnett,  Special  Judge  Advocate  of 
the  Commission.  Murphy  stated:8 

The  following  morning  I  saw  Weichmann  in  manacles  being  es- 
corted by  an  armed  guard  of  soldiers  to  the  War  Department.  The  next 
day  I  learned  that  he  was  charged  with  being  in  the  conspiracy  to  mur- 
der the  President. 

Weichmann  knew  he  was  dangerously  vulnerable  at  some  point- 
that  much  is  evident.  Only  thus  can  we  explain  the  ingenious  flu- 
ency with  which  he  swore  away  the  life  of  a  woman  who  had  be- 
friended him. 

Jennie  Gourlay's  benefit  was  never  given;  but  Miss  Gourlay 
said  that  Good  Friday's  performance  was  not  actually  the  last  in 
Ford's.  By  order  of  the  War  Department  the  company  was  as- 
sembled to  present  "Our  American  Cousin"  behind  closed  doors, 
the  object  apparently  being  to  determine  whether  collusion  had 
been  possible  between  John  Booth  and  those  on  the  stage.  Official 
photographs  were  made  to  record  the  stage-set  and  the  front  of 
the  box  as  each  had  looked  when  the  shot  was  fired.  Soldiers  of  the 

7  In  the  John  T.  Ford  Papers. 

8  New  York  Times,  Apr.  9,  1916,  magazine  section;  pp.  8-9. 


FLIGHT'S  END  239 

Veteran  Reserve  Corps  were  kept  on  guard  in  the  building,  yet 
stories  were  current,  worthy  of  Sue  or  Gaboriau,  that  somewhere 
in  its  rambling  confines  or,  it  might  be,  in  passages  beneath  it, 
John  Booth  still  prowled. 

It  was  said  that  on  Good  Friday  morning  all  the  other  boxes 
had  been  engaged  by  persons  unknown.  "The  question  now 
arises,"  maintained  the  Cincinnati  Gazette  of  April  20th,  "who 
rented  the  boxes,  and  did  it  not  naturally  arouse  suspicions  on 
the  part  of  somebody  connected  with  the  theatre,  to  know  that 
all  the  boxes  were  rented  and  yet  not  occupied?  Events  will  soon 
determine  these  mysteries." 

The  three  Ford  brothers  were  haled  to  the  Carroll  prison  and 
it  was  believed  in  the  family  that  the  health  of  James  R.  Ford 
was  definitely  affected.  Included  in  the  John  T.  Ford  Papers  are 
many  notes  throwing  new  light  on  the  rigors  of  Washington's 
military  prisons,  on  the  implacable  Stanton,  on  the  bitterness  that 
sprang  up  in  the  wake  of  the  murder.  Harry  Ford,  who  in  after 
years  declared  he  "would  not  have  missed  the  experience  for  a 
great  deal,"  said  the  Carroll  was  filled  with  a  rare  mixture— 
bounty-jumpers,  deserters,  prisoners  of  state,  "men  of  every  sta- 
tion." He  remembered  April  19th,  when,  after  the  funeral  cere- 
monies in  the  East  Room  of  the  Executive  Mansion,  Lincoln's 
body  was  escorted  to  the  Capitol,  there  to  lie  in  state  in  the  ro- 
tunda. "I  could  see  nothing,"  he  said,  "but  could  hear  the  solemn 
booming  of  guns,  the  dismal  beating  of  muffled  drums,  playing 
dead  marches,  and  the  steady  tramp  of  feet.  .  .  .  We  did  not  know 
but  the  people  in  their  excitement  would  mob  the  prison  and 
lynch  us,  for  some  of  the  men  arrested  had  been  stoned  in  the 
streets."  9 

Spirited  out  of  Cincinnati,  "June"  Booth  came  to  Philadelphia 
only  to  be  arrested.  Edwin  Booth  retired  from  the  stage  but  his 
life  was  threatened.  A  guard  was  placed  in  Asia's  house.  "Doc" 
Booth,  just  back  from  an  Australian  trip,  was  jailed  in  New  York. 
John  S.  Clarke  was  imprisoned.  The  newspapers,  Asia  wrote  bit- 
terly, "teemed  with  the  most  preposterous  adventures,  and  eccen- 
tricities, and  ill  deeds  of  the  vile  Booth  family.  The  tongue  of 
every  man  and  woman  was  free  to  revile  and  insult  us." 

9  New  York  Evening  Post,  July  8,  1884. 


240  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

In  the  latter  part  of  November  1864  John  Booth  had  left  with 
the  Clarkes  a  packet  whose  contents  were  unknown  to  them  but 
which  at  his  request  was  put  in  safekeeping.  In  January  1865 
he  asked  for  and  returned  it.  After  the  murder,  Asia  opened  the 
packet  and,  having  destroyed  "an  envelope  with  a  man's  name 
upon  it,"  turned  over  the  remainder  of  the  contents  to  her  hus- 
band. There  were  United  States  5-20  bonds  in  the  amount  of 
$3,000;  $1,000  in  Philadelphia  municipal  "sixes";  an  assignment 
of  oil  land  in  Pennsylvania  to  Junius;  a  note  for  Mary  Ann  Booth; 
and  a  letter  that  was  delivered  to  Marshal  Millward  of  Phila- 
delphia, who  immediately  gave  it  to  the  press.  This  letter,  written 
at  the  time  when  John  Booth  began  to  devote  himself  in  earnest 
to  the  abduction  plot,  is  the  longest  and  most  elaborate  piece  of 
writing  we  have  from  him,  and  it  gives  us,  in  both  matter  and 
style,  an  understanding  of  the  ferment  at  work  in  him.10 

, ,  1864 


MY  DEAR  SIR:  You  may  use  this  as  you  think  best.  But  as  some  may 
wish  to  know  when,  who,  and  why,  and  as  I  know  not  how  to  direct,  I 
give  it  (in  the  words  of  your  master) 

"To  whom  it  may  concern:" 

Right  or  wrong,  God  judge  me,  not  man.  For  be  my  motive  good  or 
bad,  of  one  thing  I  am  sure,  the  lasting  condemnation  of  the  North. 

I  love  peace  more  than  life.  Have  loved  the  Union  beyond  expression. 
For  four  years  have  I  waited,  hoped,  and  prayed  for  the  dark  clouds  to 
break,  and  for  a  restoration  of  our  former  sunshine.  To  wait  longer 
would  be  a  crime.  All  hope  for  peace  is  dead.  My  prayers  have  proved  as 
idle  as  my  hopes.  God's  will  be  done.  I  go  to  see  and  share  the  bitter 
end. 

I  have  ever  held  the  South  were  right.  The  very  nomination  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  four  years  ago,  spoke  plainly  war — war  upon  Southern 
rights  and  institutions.  His  election  proved  it.  "Await  an  overt  act." 
Yes,  till  you  are  bound  and  plundered.  What  folly!  The  South  were 
wise.  Who  thinks  of  arguments  or  patience  when  the  finger  of  his 
enemy  presses  on  the  trigger?  In  a  foreign  war,  I,  too,  could  say,  "Coun- 
try, right  or  wrong."  But  in  a  struggle  such  as  ours  (where  the  brother 
tries  to  pierce  the  brother's  heart),  for  God's  sake  choose  the  right. 
When  a  country  like  this  spurns  justice  from  her  side  she  forfeits  the 

"The  text  here  introduced  is  based  on  that  in  Forney's  War  Press  (Philadel- 
phia), Apr.  22,  1865.  See  "The  Unlocked  Book"  (pp.  124-125)  and  J.  S.  Clarke's 
affidavit  before  Judge  Advocate  Turner,  May  6,  1865  (in  the  archives  of  the 
Judge  Advocate  General). 


FLIGHT'S  END  241 

allegiance  of  every  honest  freeman  and  should  leave  him,  untrammelled 
by  any  fealty  soever,  to  act  as  his  conscience  may  approve.  People  of 
the  North,  to  hate  tyranny,  to  love  liberty  and  justice,  to  strike  at  wrong 
and  oppression,  was  the  teaching  of  our  fathers.  The  study  of  our 
early  history  will  not  let  me  forget  it,  and  may  it  never. 

This  country  was  formed  for  the  white,  not  for  the  black  man.  And, 
looking  upon  African  slavery  from  the  same  standpoint  held  by  the 
noble  framers  of  our  Constitution,  I,  for  one,  have  ever  considered  it 
one  of  the  greatest  blessings  (both  for  themselves  and  us)  that  God 
ever  bestowed  upon  a  favored  nation.  Witness  heretofore  our  wealth 
and  power;  witness  their  elevation  and  enlightenment  above  their  race 
elsewhere.  I  have  lived  among  it  most  of  my  life,  and  have  seen  less 
harsh  treatment  from  master  to  man  than  I  have  beheld  in  the  North 
from  father  to  son.  Yet,  Heaven  knows,  no  one  would  be  willing  to  do 
more  for  the  negro  race  than  I,  could  I  but  see  a  way  to  still  better  their 
condition.  But  Lincoln's  policy  is  only  preparing  a  way  for  their  total 
annihilation.  The  South  are  not,  nor  have  they  been,  fighting  for  the 
continuation  of  slavery.  The  first  battle  of  Bull  Run  did  away  with 
that  idea.  Their  causes  since  for  war  have  been  as  noble  and  greater  far 
than  those  that  urged  our  fathers  on.  Even  should  we  allow  they  were 
wrong  at  the  beginning  of  this  contest,  cruelty  and  injustice  have  made 
the  wrong  become  the  right,  and  they  stand  now  (before  the  wonder 
and  admiration  of  the  world)  as  a  noble  band  of  patriotic  heroes.  Here- 
after, reading  of  their  deeds,  Thermopylae  will  be  forgotten. 

When  I  aided  in  the  capture  and  execution  of  John  Brown  (who  was 
a  murderer  on  our  western  border  and  who  was  fairly  tried  and  con- 
victed before  an  impartial  judge  and  jury,  of  treason,  and  who,  by  the 
way,  has  since  been  made  a  god)  I  was  proud  of  my  little  share  in  the 
transaction,  for  I  deemed  it  my  duty,  and  that  I  was  helping  our  com- 
mon country  to  perform  an  act  of  justice.  But  what  was  a  crime  in  poor 
John  Brown  is  now  considered  (by  themselves)  as  the  greatest  and  only 
virtue  of  the  whole  Republican  party.  Strange  transmigration!  Vice 
to  become  a  virtue,  simply  because  more  indulge  in  it! 

I  thought  then,  as  now,  that  the  Abolitionists  were  the  only  traitors 
in  the  land  and  that  the  entire  party  deserved  the  same  fate  as  poor 
old  Brown,  not  because  they  wished  to  abolish  slavery,  but  on  account 
of  the  means  they  have  ever  endeavored  to  use  to  effect  that  abolition. 
If  Brown  were  living  I  doubt  whether  he  himself  would  set  slavery 
against  the  Union.  Most,  or  many  in  the  North  do,  and  openly  curse 
the  Union,  if  the  South  are  to  return  and  retain  a  single  right  guaran- 
teed to  them  by  every  tie  which  we  once  revered  as  sacred.  The  South 
can  make  no  choice.  It  is  either  extermination  or  slavery  for  them- 
selves (worse  than  death)  to  draw  from.  I  know  my  choice.  I  have  also 
studied  hard  to  know  upon  what  grounds  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede 


242  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

has  been  denied,  when  our  very  name,  United  States,  and  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  both  provide  for  secession. 

But  there  is  no  time  for  words.  I  write  in  haste.  I  know  how  foolish 
I  shall  be  deemed  for  taking  such  a  step  as  this,  where,  on  the  one  side, 
I  have  many  friends  and  everything  to  make  me  happy,  where  my  pro- 
fession alone  has  gained  me  an  income  of  more  than  twenty  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  and  where  my  great  personal  ambition  in  my  profession 
has  such  a  great  field  for  labor.  On  the  other  hand,  the  South  have 
never  bestowed  upon  me  one  kind  word:  a  place  now  where  I  have  no 
friends,  except  beneath  the  sod;  where  I  must  either  become  a  private 
soldier  or  a  beggar.  To  give  up  all  of  the  former  for  the  latter,  besides 
my  mother  and  my  sisters  whom  I  love  so  dearly  (although  they  so 
widely  differ  from  me  in  opinion)  seems  insane;  but  God  is  my  judge. 
I  love  justice  more  than  I  do  a  country  that  disowns  it;  more  than  fame 
and  wealth;  more  (Heaven  pardon  me  if  wrong),  more  than  a  happy 
home. 

I  have  never  been  upon  a  battlefield;  but  oh!  my  countrymen,  could 
you  all  but  see  the  reality  or  effects  of  this  horrid  war,  as  I  have  seen 
them  (in  every  State,  save  Virginia,)  I  know  you  would  think  like  me, 
and  would  pray  the  Almighty  to  create  in  the  Northern  mind  a  sense 
of  right  and  justice  (even  should  it  possess  no  seasoning  of  mercy)  and 
that  He  would  dry  up  the  sea  of  blood  between  us,  which  is  daily 
growing  wider.  Alas!  poor  country,  is  she  to  meet  her  threatened  doom? 

Four  years  ago  I  would  have  given  a  thousand  lives  to  see  her  remain 
(as  I  had  always  known  her)  powerful  and  unbroken.  And  even  now  I 
would  hold  my  life  as  naught  to  see  her  what  she  was.  Oh!  my  friends, 
if  the  fearful  scenes  of  the  past  four  years  had  never  been  enacted,  or 
if  what  has  been  had  been  but  a  frightful  dream  from  which  we  could 
now  awake,  with  what  overflowing  hearts  could  we  bless  our  God  and 
pray  for  His  continued  favor!  How  I  have  loved  the  old  flag  can  never 
now  be  known.  A  few  years  since  and  the  entire  world  could  boast  of 
none  so  pure  and  spotless.  But  I  have  of  late  been  seeing  and  hearing  of 
the  bloody  deeds  of  which  she  has  been  made  the  emblem,  and  would 
shudder  to  think  how  changed  she  had  grown.  Oh!  how  I  have  longed 
to  see  her  break  from  the  mist  of  blood  that  circles  round  her  folds, 
spoiling  her  beauty,  and  tarnishing  her  honor.  But  no,  day  by  day  has 
she  been  dragged  deeper  and  deeper  into  cruelty  and  oppression,  till 
now  (in  my  eyes)  her  once  bright  red  stripes  look  like  bloody  gashes  on 
the  face  of  Heaven.  I  look  now  upon  my  early  admiration  of  her 
glories  as  a  dream.  My  love  (as  things  stand  to-day)  is  for  the  South 
alone.  Nor  do  I  deem  it  a  dishonor  in  attempting  to  make  for  her  a 
prisoner  of  this  man,  to  whom  she  owes  so  much  of  misery. 

If  success  attends  me,  I  go  penniless  to  her  side.  They  say  she  has 
found  that  "last  ditch"  which  the  North  has  so  long  derided,  and  been 
endeavoring  to  force  her  in,  forgetting  they  are  our  brothers,  and  that 


FLIGHT'S  END  243 

it  is  impolitic  to  goad  an  enemy  to  madness.  Should  I  reach  her  in 
safety  and  find  it  true,  I  will  proudly  beg  permission  to  triumph  or  die 
in  that  same  "ditch"  by  her  side. 

A  Confederate  doing  duty  upon  his  own  responsibility. 

J.  WILKES  BOOTH. 

"To  whom  it  may  concern"  is  obviously  an  allusion  to  Lincoln's 
executive  order  of  July  18th,  1864,  which  began  with  those  words 
and  was  issued  on  the  occasion  of  Horace  Greeley's  ineffectual 
negotiations  with  the  Confederate  commissioners  at  Niagara  Falls. 
Booth  did  not  aid  in  the  capture  of  John  Brown,  for  Brown  was 
already  a  prisoner  when  Booth  reached  Charlestown.  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  true  that  the  South  had  never  bestowed  "one  kind 
word"  on  Booth,  although  it  was  on  the  Northern  stage  during 
the  war  years  that  his  talent  developed.  The  phrase  "A  Confeder- 
ate doing  duty  upon  his  own  responsibility"  means,  if  it  means 
anything,  that  Booth  was  not  acting  under  instructions  from 
the  Confederate  government  or  from  any  Confederate  official  or 
agent. 

Even  then,  it  appears,  the  American  public  was  not  to  be  denied 
its  tidbit  of  romantic  interest.  From  Washington  the  New  York 
Tribune  learned: 

The  unhappy  lady — the  daughter  of  a  New  England  Senator — to 
whom  Booth  was  affianced,  is  plunged  in  profoundest  grief;  but  with 
womanly  fidelity,  is  slow  to  believe  him  guilty  of  this  appalling  crime, 
and  asks,  with  touching  pathos,  for  evidence  of  his  innocence.11 

It  was  asserted  by  friends  of  the  senator  that  there  had  been  no 
engagement— not  even  a  tentative  one.  "There  is  no  truth  in  the 
statement,  nor  the  slightest  foundation  for  it."  .  .  .  ,  said  a  let- 
ter to  the  Boston  Advertiser.  But  Edwin  Booth  wrote  to  Asia:  "I 
have  had  a  heart-broken  letter  from  the  poor  little  girl  to  whom 
he  had  promised  so  much  happiness."  12  This  would  seem  definite 
enough,  though  we  may  take  no  stock  in  the  reports  that  Booth's 
fiancee  declared  her  readiness  to  be  married  to  him,  even  at  the 
foot  of  the  scaffold.  Elizabeth  Hale,  usually  referred  to  as  Lizzie 
or  Bessie— afterward  Mrs.  Kinsley,  later  Mrs.  Jaques— has  some- 
times been  mentioned  as  the  lady  involved.  There  is  good  reason, 

"Apr.  22. 

""The  Unlocked  Book";  p.  127   (English  ed.). 


244  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

however,  for  believing  it  was  not  she  but  her  sister  Lucy  (subse- 
quently the  wife  of  Senator  William  E.  Chandler  of  New  Hamp- 
shire). 

Another  lady,  however— a  lady  with  no  influential  friends  to 
protect  her— was  discovered  by  the  press.  It  was  told  that  Ella 
Turner  (whose  right  name  was  said  to  be  Starr),  of  62  Ohio 
Avenue,  took  chloroform  on  April  15th  and  when  found  was 
"apparently  asleep."  When  she  could  not  be  roused,  several  physi- 
cians were  called  in  and  remedies  were  applied.  On  reviving,  Ella 
asked  for  Booth's  picture,  hidden  under  her  pillow,  and  informed 
the  doctors  that  she  did  not  thank  them  for  saving  her  life.13 

In  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General  one  of  the  papers 
found  among  John  Booth's  effects  is  this  brief,  hurried  missive, 
tucked  away  with  statements,  affidavits,  and  all  the  other  mis- 
cellany of  a  famous  case: 

My  darling  Baby 

Please  call  this  evening  as  soon  as  you  receive  this  note  I  will  not  de- 
tain you  five  minnits  for  gods  sake  come 

yours  truly 

E  S 
if  you  will  not  come 
write  a  note  the  reason  why 
Washington  Feb  7th  [i]865 

This,  we  may  conclude,  was  from  Ella  Starr,  whose  orbit  never 
crossed  Miss  Hale's,  whose  literacy  did  not  extend  to  spelling 
God  with  a  capital,  but  who  wished  to  die  when  Johnny  Booth 
fled.  She  was  subpoenaed  for  the  Conspiracy  Trial,  and  W.  E. 
Doster,  counsel  for  Atzerodt  and  Paine,  saw  her  then  and  de- 
scribed her  as  "a  rather  pretty,  light-haired,  little  woman."  14  It 
was  decided  that  her  evidence  would  not  be  "very  much  to  the 
point"  and  she  was  not  required  to  take  the  stand. 

A  cipher  code  was  in  Booth's  trunk  at  the  National  Hotel 
—one  of  the  official  Confederate  ciphers,  identical  with  that  found 
by  Assistant  Secretary  Dana  at  Richmond  in  the  office  of  J.  P. 
Benjamin,  Confederate  Secretary  of  State.  Howell,  the  Confeder- 

13  Commercial  Advertiser   (New  York),  Apr.  17. 

14  "Lincoln  and  Episodes  of  the  Civil  War";  p.  276.  The  note  was  sent  to  the 
National  Hotel  at  a  time  when  John  was  absent  from  Washington. 


".    .    .    My  acquaintances 

claimed  he  [Booth]  bore  a 
striking  facial  and  physical  re- 
semblance to  myself.  I  was, 
perhaps,  four  or  five  years 
younger  than  Booth,  and  he 
was  slightly  taller,  but  in  a 
general  way  we  were  enough 
alike  to  have  been  mistaken 
for  each  other." 

M.  B.  Leavitt  in  his  "Fifty 
Years  in  Theatrical  Man- 
agement" 


Look  here,  upon  this  picture, 
and  on  this"  .  .  . 


JOHN    BOOTH    AND    A 
"DOUBLE" 

(Booth  above,  Leavitt  at  the 
right) 


FLIGHT'S  END  245 

ate  agent,  had  taught  that  cipher  to  Weichmann,  and  no  doubt 
Booth  obtained  it  from  the  same  source.  In  each  instance,  Howell 
knew  his  man.  During  the  Conspiracy  Trial,  Weichmann,  when 
cross-examined  by  Frederick  Aiken  (of  counsel  for  Mrs.  Surratt), 
admitted  that  he  had  learned  the  cipher  from  Howell  but  said  he 
did  not  know  it  was  used  at  Richmond  and  that  all  he  had  em- 
ployed it  for  was  to  write  out  one  of  Longfellow's  poems. 

The  story  was  current  that  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  kill 
Grant  as  he  rode  toward  Philadelphia  that  Friday  night.  Accord- 
ing to  Lamon,  Grant  himself  said:15 

Only  a  few  days  afterwards  I  received  an  anonymous  letter  stating 
that  the  writer  had  been  detailed  to  assassinate  me;  that  he  rode  in  my 
train  as  far  as  Havre  de  Grace,  and  as  my  car  was  locked  he  failed  to 
get  in.  He  now  thanked  God  he  had  so  failed.  I  remember  very  well 
that  the  conductor  locked  our  car  door;  but  how  far  the  letter  was 
genuine  I  am  unable  to  say. 

Grant  was  in  a  carefully  guarded  private  car  and  was  accompanied 
not  only  by  Mrs.  Grant  but  by  Beckwith,  his  cipher  operator.  If 
any  attempt  had  really  been  made,  it  would  surely  have  been  re- 
ferred to  by  Beckwith  in  his  "Memoirs  of  Grant's  Shadow."  16 
The  anonymous  letter  must  have  been  the  work  of  a  crank.  It 
cannot  be  shown  that  Booth  detailed  anybody  to  travel  with 
Grant;  and  the  notion  is  no  longer  tenable  that  in  those  hours 
Booth  was  merely  acting  for  others  in  some  vague,  far-reaching 
conspiracy. 

A  curious  item  did,  however,  appear  in  the  New  York  Tribune: 

A  well-known  citizen  of  Baltimore  committed  suicide  last  Monday,  a 
short  distance  from  this  city,  by  shooting  himself  with  a  pistol.  No 
cause  could  be  assigned  for  the  rash  act  except  that  he  had  recently 
seemed  depressed  and  melancholy. 

Subsequent  events  have  induced  the  suspicion  that  he  was  in  some 
way  implicated  in  the  conspiracy,  and  last  night  the  body  was  exhumed, 
embalmed,  and  sent  to  Washington  by  orders  of  the  Government. 

The  affair  causes  much  speculation,  and  there  are  many  reports  in 
connection  with  it,  as  well  as  some  facts,  which  it  is  deemed  imprudent 
to  publish  at  present.17 

15  "Recollections";  p.  279. 

16  In  the  New  York  Sun,  Apr.  6,  13,  20,  27,  1913   (edited  by  W.  R.  Lee). 

17  Apr.  29. 


246  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

This  is  confirmed  by  Maj.  H.  B.  Smith,  who  says:  "The  suicide 
was  buried  in  Greenmount  Cemetery,  and  in  the  darkness  of 
night  we  dug  up  the  body  as  mentioned  by  the  Tribune.  This  was 
the  only  time  I  ever  acted  the  part  of  a  ghoul."  18  The  man  had 
presumably  been  connected  with  the  abduction  plot  and,  in  view 
of  what  had  happened  to  those  other  Baltimoreans  O'Laughlin 
and  Arnold,  he  feared  arrest.  But  John  Booth  and  Davy  Herold 
both  had  vanished  and  the  net  seemed  to  be  spread  for  them  in 
vain. 

In  Lower  Maryland  a  small  army  of  pursuers  milled  about.  It 
is  unnecessary  for  us  now  to  go  into  all  the  minutiae  of  what  they 
did  and  might  have  done.  After  a  week  they  picked  up  the  trail 
of  Booth  and  Herold,  only  to  see  it  fade  out  into  blankness.  Years 
were  to  pass  before  the  mystery  was  removed,  and  even  then  some 
minor  questions  remained  unanswered. 

Improbable  as  it  might  have  seemed,  the  man  who  gave  the 
name  Booth  to  Sergeant  Cobb  that  Friday  night  at  the  Navy 
Yard  bridge  was  actually  Booth.  "Smith,"  on  the  roan  horse,  was 
Herold.  Booth  crossed  the  low  wooden  bridge— an  old  structure 
that  in  1861  had  been  virtually  rebuilt  to  carry  the  weight  of 
artillery— and  not  far  from  the  other  (or  Uniontown)  end  he 
turned  to  the  left  and  climbed  the  long  stretch  of  Good  Hope  Hill. 
Below  him,  Washington  was  already  seething  with  the  news  of 
murder,  but  soon  he  would  be  going  down  into  the  comparative 
security  of  Lower  Maryland. 

We  do  not  know  just  where  Herold  overtook  him.  They  went 
along  what  was  called  the  old  T.  B.  road,  by  Silver  Hill,  and  rode 
together  up  to  the  door  of  Lloyd's  barroom  in  the  Surratt  house 
at  Surrattsville.  Because  of  the  condition  of  his  left  leg,  Booth  did 
not  dismount.  The  leg  was  now  swollen  and  painful,  and  he  was 
sure  he  had  injured  it  when  he  made  that  awkward  landing  on 
the  stage. 

When  the  abduction  plot  was  ripening,  John  Surratt  had  left 
two  carbines  and  some  rope  with  Lloyd.  He  had  gone  with  Lloyd 
to  an  unfinished  room  at  the  back  part  of  the  house  and  shown 

18  "Between  the  Lines";  p.  310. 


FLIGHT'S  END  247 

him  how  these  things  could  be  hidden  there.  The  drunken  and 
irresponsible  Lloyd  afterward  testified  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had 
warned  him,  when  Louis  Weichmann  drove  her  to  Surrattsville 
on  the  afternoon  of  April  14th,  to  have  the  shooting-irons  ready 
because  they  would  be  needed  that  evening.  Inasmuch  as  Lloyd 
was  sodden  with  drink  at  the  time— or,  as  the  native  phrase  had 
it,  "right  smart  in  likker"— little  reliance  should  be  placed  in 
him;  and  after  the  murder  he,  like  Weichmann,  was  in  mortal  fear 
for  his  neck.  It  clearly  was  shown  that  Mrs.  Surratt  went  to 
Surrattsville  because  obliged  to  go  on  a  business  errand  connected 
with  money  due  her.  She  took  with  her  a  bundle  of  papers  dealing 
with  this  matter,  and  also  a  package  that  she  handed  to  Mrs. 
Emma  Offutt,  Lloyd's  sister-in-law,  remarking  that  she  had  been 
asked  to  leave  it  there.  It  is  highly  improbable  that  she  had  any 
inkling  of  what  was  to  be  attempted  that  night. 

Her  sympathies  were,  no  doubt,  with  the  Confederacy.  John 
Surratt  was  a  runner  for  it;  Isaac,  John's  brother,  was  in  its  army. 
Atzerodt  and  Paine,  to  be  sure,  visited  the  Surratt  boarding-house 
on  H  Street  and  made  themselves  at  home  in  it;  but  if  they  looked 
rather  ferocious,  with  their  revolvers,  their  bowie  knives,  and 
their  scowls,  so  did  plenty  of  others  in  Washington.  Mrs.  Surratt 
might  well  have  taken  them  to  be  no  more  than  associates  of  John 
in  the  pastime  of  eluding  Federal  detectives.  But  even  if  she  had 
been  cognizant  of  an  abduction  plot,  that  would  be  quite  different 
from  having  part  in  the  murder.  "She  kept  the  nest  where  the  egg 
was  hatched"— such  is  the  epigram  credited  to  Andrew  Johnson. 
What  egg} 

This  night  of  the  14th,  Davy  Herold  took  a  drink  out  to  Booth, 
and  got  from  the  befuddled  and  sleepy  Lloyd  one  carbine  and  the 
package.  Then,  with  thirteen  miles  between  them  and  Washing- 
ton, the  horsemen  started  for  Doctor  Mudd's.  Their  way  lay 
through  the  hamlet  of  T.  B.  and  along  the  T.  B.  road  to  the 
point  where  it  crossed  Mattawoman  Swamp;  thence  by  the  road 
that  led  past  St.  Peter's  Church.  This  meant  turning  toward  the 
southeast  instead  of  the  southwest,  toward  the  Patuxent  instead 
of  the  Potomac,  and  delay  was  risky;  but  Booth  felt  he  must  have 
his  leg  examined.  Had  it  not  been  for  his  accident,  he  would  not 


248  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

have  gone  anywhere  near  Mudd's  house  and  Mudd  would  not  have 
been  caught  in  the  web  that  Louis  Weichmann  and  others  helped 
to  intwine  about  him. 

In  the  dark  of  early  morning  there  was  a  knock  at  Mudd's  door. 
It  was  about  four  o'clock,  he  said. 

I  was  aroused  by  the  noise,  and  as  it  was  such  an  unusual  thing  for 
persons  to  knock  so  loudly,  I  took  the  precaution  of  asking  who  were 
there  before  opening  the  door.  After  they  had  knocked  twice  more,  I 
opened  the  door,  but  before  doing  so  they  told  me  they  were  two 
strangers  on  their  way  to  Washington,  that  one  of  their  horses  had 
fallen,  by  which  one  of  the  men  had  broken  his  leg.  On  opening  the 
door  I  found  two  men,  one  on  a  horse  led  by  the  other  man  who  had 
tied  his  horse  to  a  tree  near  by.  I  aided  the  man  in  getting  off  his  horse 
and  into  the  house,  and  laid  him  on  a  sofa  in  my  parlor. 

After  getting  a  light,  I  assisted  him  in  getting  up-stairs  where  there 
were  two  beds,  one  of  which  he  took.  He  seemed  to  be  very  much  in- 
jured in  the  back,  and  complained  very  much  of  it.  I  did  not  see  his 
face  at  all.  He  seemed  to  be  tremulous  and  not  inclined  to  talk,  and 
had  his  cloak  [Mudd  also  referred  to  this  as  "a  heavy  shawl"]  thrown 
around  his  head  and  seemed  inclined  to  sleep,  as  I  thought,  in  order 
to  ease  himself;  and  every  now  and  then  he  would  groan  pretty  heavily. 

The  younger  man,  Doctor  Mudd  said,  gave  his  name  as  Huston 
and  called  his  friend  Tyser  or  Tyson.  "Tyson"  at  first  wore  a 
mustache  and  whiskers  and  was  extremely  pale.  When  a  photo- 
graph of  Booth  was  shown,  Mudd  said  he  would  not  from  any 
resemblance  to  the  photograph  think  "Tyson"  was  Booth— "but 
from  other  causes  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  is  the 
man  whose  leg  I  dressed."  On  Saturday  morning  "Huston"  bor- 
rowed a  razor.  After  dinner  the  Doctor  went  up  to  see  the  patient, 
who  kept  his  face  partly  turned  away.  Mudd  noticed,  however, 
that  the  mustache  was  now  gone,  though  he  could  not  say 
whether  the  whiskers  were  natural  or  false. 

(Many  have  questioned  whether  it  was  possible  that  neither 
the  Doctor  nor  Mrs.  Mudd  recognized  a  man  whom  they  had  re- 
ceived as  an  overnight  guest  only  a  few  months  before— especially 
a  man  so  individual  as  John  Booth.  Others,  in  view  of  the  unusual 
conditions,  accept  Mudd's  statement  as  given  in  good  faith.) 

"Tyson"  had  wished  to  have  the  leg  fixed  up  roughly,  "as  he 
said  he  wanted  to  get  back,  or  get  home  and  have  it  done  by  a 


FLIGHTS  END  249 

regular  physician."  Mudd,  hurrying  more  than  he  otherwise 
would  have,  made  a  splint  by  doubling  a  piece  of  an  old  bandbox. 

On  examination  I  found  there  was  a  straight  fracture  of  the  tibia 
about  two  inches  above  the  ankle.  My  examination  was  quite  short, 
and  I  did  not  find  the  adjoining  bone  fractured  in  any  way.  I  do  not 
regard  it  a  peculiarly  painful  or  dangerous  wound;  there  was  nothing 
resembling  a  compound  fracture.  .  .  . 

I  suppose  in  a  day  or  two  swelling  would  take  place  in  the  wounded 
man's  leg;  there  was  very  little  tumefaction  in  the  wound,  and  I  could 
discover  crepitation  very  distinctly.  It  would  be  necessary  to  dress  it 
again  in  two  or  three  days  if  it  were  left  in  a  recumbent  posture;  but 
if  moved  at  a  moderate  rate,  I  do  not  know  as  it  would  aggravate  it 
very  much  unless  it  was  struck  by  something. 

The  left  boot  was  slit  across  the  instep  and  removed.  Written 
inside  was  the  name  J.  Wilkes;  and  when  later  the  boot  was 
turned  over  to  Lieutenant  Lovett,  this  was  a  means  of  identifying 
Booth  with  the  so-called  Tyson.  Doctor  Mudd  and  an  old  Eng- 
lishman named  Best  who  worked  about  the  place,  made  a  pair 
of  rude  crutches  for  the  injured  man's  use. 

Before  seeing  Mudd's  sworn  statement,19  from  which  the  pre- 
ceding quotations  have  been  made,  the  present  writer  submitted 
the  evidence  at  hand  to  Dr.  Isadore  Zadek,  well-known  surgeon 
of  New  York.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  on  this  basis  Doctor  Zadek 
gave  the  following  expert  opinion  regarding  Booth's  fracture: 

It  appears  to  have  been  a  transverse  fracture  of  the  left  tibia,  about 
two  inches  above  the  ankle;  either  incomplete  or  impacted. 

It  is,  therefore,  altogether  clear  that  no  proper  ground  exists  for 
repeated  careless  assertions  either  that  the  fibula  was  fractured  or 
that  the  injury  was  to  the  right  leg.  (Townsend  said,  "The  in- 
ferior bone  of  the  left  leg  was  broken  vertically  across."  [!]) 
The  boot  removed  by  Doctor  Mudd  and  preserved  in  the  War  De- 
partment, where  it  was  examined  by  the  present  writer,  is  a  high 
riding  boot  of  a  cavalry  type  then  in  vogue,  and  unmistakably 
designed  for  the  left  foot.  Mudd  got  an  old  shoe  and,  cutting 
down  the  upper,  prepared  a  covering  to  be  worn  in  place  of  the 
boot. 

On  Saturday  afternoon,  between  four  and  five  o'clock,  Booth 

18  In  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 


250  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

and  Herold  departed.  At  Herold's  request,  Mudd  pointed  out  a 
short  cut  to  Parson  Wilmer's,  but  Wilmer's  was  not  the  travelers' 
real  objective.  Maps  have  traced  with  great  exactitude  their  route 
across  Lower  Maryland;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  their  course  from 
Mudd's  to  Samuel  Cox's,  where  they  appeared  about  four  o'clock 
on  Sunday  morning,  is  largely  guesswork.  Lost  in  the  purlieus  of 
Zekiah  Swamp  when  Herold's  knowledge  of  the  country  failed 
them,  they  were  guided  to  Cox's  along  obscure  trails  by  a  Negro, 
Oswald  ("Ozzie")  Swann,  whom  Booth  paid  for  his  services. 

Samuel  Cox  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  owned  a  large  tract  of 
land,  with  a  house  of  superior  appearance  for  that  region,  and  had 
from  thirty  to  forty  slaves.  He  commanded  a  volunteer  company  at 
Bryantown,  and  hence  was  known  generally  among  his  neighbors 
as  Cap'n  Cox.  Thomas  A.  Jones,  official  agent  in  Maryland  for 
the  Confederate  mails,  was  his  foster  brother. 

Later  that  Sunday  morning  Cox  sent  for  Jones,  and  Jones  rode 
over  to  see  what  was  wanted.  Cox  told  of  the  wayfarers  who  had 
arrived  a  few  hours  before,  and  said  that  his  overseer,  Franklin 
Robey,  had  taken  them  to  a  grove  of  short  pines  about  a  mile  to 
the  west,  on  land  belonging  to  Michael  S.  Robertson.  Booth,  he 
said,  had  identified  himself  by  the  initials  J.  W.  B.  in  India  ink 
on  his  wrist.  (Jones  thought  that,  if  Booth  did  not  enter  the 
house,  a  light  must  have  been  carried  out.)  Cox  asked  Jones  to 
take  care  of  Booth  and  Herold  until  they  could  be  put  across  the 
river,  and  Jones  promised  to  do  so. 

For  six  days  of  chill  and  sullen  weather  the  fugitives  remained 
concealed  in  this  little  isle  of  safety.  To  Herold  some  freedom  of 
movement  was  possible,  but  Booth,  disheveled  and  in  pain,  lay 
stretched  upon  the  damp  ground.  He  was  "exceedingly  pale," 
Jones  said,  "and  his  features  bore  the  evident  traces  of  suffering. 
.  .  .  Murderer  though  I  knew  him  to  be,  his  condition  so  enlisted 
my  sympathy  in  his  behalf  that  my  horror  of  his  deed  was  almost 
forgotten  in  my  compassion  for  the  man."  Sometimes  the  thud  of 
hooves  and  jingle  of  accouterments  told  of  the  near  passing  of 
cavalry  but  the  nook  was  not  searched.  The  two  horses  were,  how- 
ever, a  possible  source  of  danger— a  whinny  from  one  of  them 
might  arouse  the  interest  of  the  pursuers.  They  were  accordingly 
led  down  into   the  marshland  and   there   shot— presumably   by 


FLIGHT'S  END  251 

Herold,  as  Cox  told  Jones.  Pumphrey  would  never  have  his  shin- 
ing bay  again  and  Nailor's  roan  would  not  come  back  to  the 
stable. 

With  the  food  he  brought,  Jones  also  brought  newspapers. 
Booth's  main  concern  seemed  to  be  to  learn  what  was  said  of  his 
deed.  Nearly  the  first  question  he  put  to  Jones  was  about  that, 
and  Jones  told  him  it  was  good  news  to  most  men  of  Confederate 
sympathies.  (Jones  himself  thought  so  at  first  but  later  changed 
his  mind.)  He  showed  Jones  the  tattooed  initials  and  declared  he 
never  would  be  taken  alive.  With  the  countryside  full  of  soldiers 
and  detectives,  Jones  could  give  him  no  assurance  as  to  when  it 
would  be  safe  to  cross  the  Potomac. 

Slim  and  wiry,  Jones  had  a  thin,  melancholy  poker-face  and  a 
drooping  mustache,  and  he  spoke  with  a  kind  of  mournful  drawl. 
In  the  barroom  of  the  old  Brawner  House  at  Port  Tobacco  he 
encountered  Capt.  William  Williams,  who  had  come  from  Wash- 
ington in  the  pursuit;  and  the  two  drank.  Eyeing  Jones  closely, 
Williams  said: 

"I  will  give  $100,000  to  anybody  who  can  tell  me  where  Booth 
is." 

Looking  steadily  back  at  Williams  with  what  Williams  after- 
ward described  as  "that  come-to- the-Lord-and-be-saved  expres- 
sion," Jones  replied,  "That  is  a  large  sum  of  money  and  ought  to 
get  him  if  money  can  do  it." 

The  Confederacy  was  expiring  without  paying  Jones  a  cent  of 
the  $2,300  it  owed  him  for  his  services.  He  had  invested  $3,000 
in  Confederate  bonds,  now  worthless  paper.  The  war,  he  admitted, 
had  been  a  bad  thing  for  him  all  the  way  through.  But  the  old 
allegiance  held,  and  the  confidence  reposed  in  him  by  Samuel  Cox, 
"the  best  friend  I  ever  had."  "I  did  not  know  Booth,"  he  said, 
"but  when  Cox  put  him  in  my  keeping  nothing  would  have 
tempted  me  to  betray  him." 

On  the  sixth  day— Friday,  April  21st— he  was  over  at  the  hamlet 
of  Allen's  Fresh  and  there  heard  a  cavalry  officer  say,  "We  have 
just  got  news  that  those  fellows  have  been  seen  down  in  St. 
Mary's  County."  Knowing  that  the  troops  would  consequently  be 
ordered  to  that  section,  he  hastened  to  inform  the  eager  Booth 
that  the  time  for  crossing  to  Virginia  had  at  last  arrived.  Jones 


252  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

had  ready  a  lead-colored  skiff  and  had  instructed  a  Negro  servant, 
Henry  Woodland,  to  fish  from  it  each  day  with  gill  nets  and  each 
day  to  return  it  to  its  hiding  place  in  Dent's  Meadow.  Between 
high  cliffs,  then  thickly  wooded  and  covered  with  a  dense  growth 
of  laurel,  a  stream  flowed  through  this  meadow  to  the  river,  and 
there  in  the  long  marsh-grass  the  boat  was  well  hidden. 

The  night  was  dark.  Booth  was  lifted  to  Jones'  horse;  Herold 
walked  alongside,  Jones  went  fifty  or  sixty  yards  ahead.  A  stop 
was  made  at  Jones'  house  and  food  was  carried  out.  "None  of  the 
family  noticed  what  I  was  doing,"  Jones  said.  "They  knew  better 
than  to  question  me  about  anything  in  those  days."  Some  three 
hundred  yards  from  the  river,  Booth  was  helped  to  dismount, 
and  from  there  he  was  supported  down  the  rough  path  to  Dent's 
Meadow. 

Herold  took  the  oars;  Booth  was  placed  in  the  stern,  with  an 
oar  to  steer  by;  and  then  Jones  lit  a  candle  and  by  its  carefully 
shaded  light  pointed  out  on  Booth's  pocket  compass  the  course  to 
be  followed.  "Keep  to  that,"  he  said,  "and  it  will  bring  you  into 
Machadoc  Creek.  Mrs.  Quesenberry  lives  near  the  mouth  of  this 
creek.  If  you  tell  her  you  come  from  me,  I  think  she  will  take  care 
of  you."  Booth  paid  Jones  $17  in  greenbacks  for  the  boat,20 
saying,  "God  bless  you,  my  dear  friend,  for  all  you  have  done  for 
me."  Jones  gave  the  boat  a  shove— it  glided  away  and  was  lost  in 
the  darkness.  "I  stood  on  the  shore  and  listened,"  Jones  said, 
"till  the  sound  of  the  oars  died  away  in  the  distance,  then  climbed 
the  hill  and  took  my  way  home,  and  my  sleep  was  more  quiet  and 
peaceful  than  it  had  been  for  some  time." 

The  fugitives  did  not,  however,  reach  the  Virginia  side  that 
night.  A  strong  flood  tide  carried  the  boat  upstream,  some  twelve 
miles  out  of  the  way,  and  during  the  night  Booth  and  Herold  put 
into  Avon  Creek,  a  tributary  of  Nanjemoy  Creek.  In  the  morning 
Herold  obtained  food  from  the  residence  of  Col.  John  J.  Hughes 
at  Nanjemoy  Stores,  and  throughout  Saturday  he  and  Booth  re- 
mained in  concealment.  That  night  they  crossed.21  They  came  up 

30  Frank  Leslie's  for  May  20,  1865,  had  a  cut  of  a  boat  for  which  it  said  Booth  had 
paid  $300.  See  Jones'  "J.  Wilkes  Booth.  An  Account  of  His  Sojourn  in  Southern 
Maryland." 

21  One  George  H.  Owen  falsely  said  (archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General)  that 
he  ferried  them  over  for  five  dollars. 


FLIGHT'S  END  253 

into  Gambo  Creek,  just  above  Machadoc  Creek,  in  King  George 
County,  and  Herold  walked  the  mile  to  Mrs.  Quesenberry's.  Mrs. 
Quesenberry  sent  a  meal  to  Booth;  then  Thomas  Harbin  (Jones' 
brother-in-law)  and  Joseph  Badden  acted  as  guides  to  the  log 
cabin  of  William  L.  Bryant,  a  farmer  living  further  inland. 
Bryant's  place  was  reached  about  an  hour  before  sundown,  and 
there  Booth  rested.  Herold  explained  that  his  soldier  brother 
John,  after  having  a  leg  broken  in  a  fall  from  a  horse,  had  been 
paroled  to  go  home.  For  ten  dollars  Bryant  agreed  to  convey  the 
loquacious  Herold  and  the  close-tongued  Booth  to  Dr.  Richard 
Stewart's,  about  eight  miles  away.  Doctor  Stewart,  Herold  said, 
had  been  recommended  to  them. 

So  with  the  two  companions  on  one  of  Bryant's  horses  and 
Bryant  himself  on  the  other,  they  arrived  at  Stewart's  door. 
Bryant  stated:  "I  heard  the  Doctor  tell  the  well  man  that  his 
brother  could  not  stay  there;  he  had  no  room  for  him,  he  had 
turned  away  some  Maryland  soldiers  that  day."  22  Stewart  said 
that  the  fugitives  got  to  his  house  about  eight  o'clock  and  re- 
mained not  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  The  smaller  man, 
who  had  "a  short  carbine"  and  a  satchel,  informed  the  Doctor 
that  they  were  Marylanders,  would  like  to  be  put  up  for  the  night, 
and  wished  then  to  "go  to  Mosby."  They  were  looking  for  some- 
body to  take  them  to  Fredericksburg.  The  other  man,  wearing  "a 
large  shawl,"  said  that  he  had  broken  his  leg  in  a  fall  and  that 
Doctor  Mudd  had  set  it. 

"I  did  not  really  believe  he  had  a  broken  leg,"  Stewart  said; 
"I  thought  it  was  all  put  on,  although  he  was  on  two  crutches." 
Stewart  further  said  it  had  occurred  to  him  that  the  men  might 
have  been  connected  with  "the  vile  act  of  assassination,"  of  which 
he  had  heard  on  the  previous  Tuesday.23 

Known  for  his  Confederate  sympathies  during  the  war,  Stewart 
had  been  under  surveillance  and  arrest,  and  therefore  he  now  felt 
it  prudent  to  do  no  more  than  give  these  strangers  a  meal  and 
direct  them  to  the  cabin  of  William  Lucas,  a  free  Negro  who 
worked  on  the  Stewart  farm.  Bryant  meanwhile  had  started  for 

"From  the  original  record  (Washington,  May  6,  1865)  in  the  office  of  the  Judge 
Advocate  General. 

23  From  the  original  record  (Washington,  May  6,  1865)  in  the  office  of  the  Judge 
Advocate  General. 


254  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

home,  but,  on  being  called  back  by  the  Doctor,  he  consented  to 
take  the  pair  to  Lucas'  and  leave  them  there.  Though  Booth 
hardly  spoke,  Herold  prattled  incessantly— or,  in  Bryant's  idiom, 
"The  well  one  talked  all." 

Piqued  by  Stewart's  treatment,  Booth  sent  $2.50  to  the  Doc- 
tor, with  the  following  note: 

Dear  Sir:  Forgive  me,  but  I  have  some  little  pride.  I  hate  to  blame 
you  for  your  want  of  hospitality:  you  know  your  own  affairs.  I  was  sick 
and  tired,  with  a  broken  leg,  in  need  of  medical  advice.  I  would  not 
have  turned  a  dog  from  my  door  in  such  a  condition.  However,  you 
were  kind  enough  to  give  me  something  to  eat,  for  which  I  not  only 
thank  you,  but  on  account  of  the  reluctant  manner  in  which  it  was 
bestowed,  I  feel  bound  to  pay  for  it.  It  is  not  the  substance,  but  the 
manner  in  which  a  kindness  is  extended,  that  makes  one  happy  in  the 
acceptance  thereof.  The  sauce  in  meat  is  ceremony;  meeting  were  bare 
without  it.  ["Macbeth,"  iii,  4]  Be  kind  enough  to  accept  the  enclosed 
two  dollars  and  a  half  (though  hard  to  spare)  for  what  we  have  re- 
ceived. 

Yours  respectfully, 
Stranger. 

The  original  of  this  was  later  obtained  from  Stewart  by  the  War 
Department. 

That  night  Herold  and  Booth  were  sheltered  in  the  primitive 
dwelling  of  William  Lucas;  and  next  morning  Lucas  drove  them 
to  Port  Conway,  where  a  ferry  crossed  the  Rappahannock  to  Port 
Royal.  There  three  young  fellows  came  riding  along— three 
friends  who  had  grown  up  together  and  lately  had  been  with 
Mosby's  irregulars  in  Loudoun  and  Fauquier  Counties.  Riding 
their  own  horses,  they  were  on  the  way  homeward,  ready  to  give 
their  paroles  to  the  nearest  provost  marshal  or  parole  officer.  Their 
respective  ranks  have  been  a  matter  of  dispute,  but  their  names 
were  Bainbridge,  Ruggles,  and  Jett.  Jett,  who  was  only  eighteen, 
had  for  a  time  been  on  duty  as  commissary  agent  in  Caroline 
County,  collecting  the  tax  in  kind  and  receiving  stores  from  de- 
tailed, exempted,  and  bonded  farmers— men  who  were  exempted 
from  the  Confederate  service  and  bonded  to  furnish  beef,  bacon, 
and  other  supplies  at  government  prices.  He  had,  therefore,  an 
extensive  acquaintance  with  Caroline  County  and  its  people;  and 
a  sweetheart  lived  at  Bowling  Green. 


FLIGHT'S  END  255 

Herold  at  first  introduced  himself  as  David  E.  Boyd  and  said 
that  the  man  with  him  was  his  brother,  James  W.  Boyd,  who  had 
been  wounded  in  the  leg  in  a  fight  near  Petersburg.  Before  long, 
however,  he  admitted  his  own  and  Booth's  identity;  and  Jett, 
though  "thrown  aback"  (as  he  said)  so  that  he  could  not  speak 
for  two  or  three  minutes,  finally  consented,  with  the  approval  of 
Bainbridge  and  Ruggles,  to  find  a  place  of  safety  for  the  outlawed 
pair. 

Booth's  injured  leg  was  much  swollen  and  evidently  painful; 
his  face  was  pinched  and  haggard,  and  the  sunken  eyes  had  a  fever- 
ish brightness.  The  heavy  mustache  was  gone,  but  a  ten  days' 
growth  of  beard  covered  his  face,  and  his  dark  clothing  looked 
unkempt.  On  his  left  foot  was  a  shoe  whose  upper  part  had  been 
entirely  cut  away.  The  letters  J.  W.  B.  in  India  ink  on  his  left 
wrist  were  a  distinguishing  mark.  He  explained  that  he  was  abso- 
lutely unable  to  walk  any  considerable  distance,  so  he  was  placed 
on  Ruggles'  horse,  and  thus,  his  crutches  carried  by  Ruggles,  he 
crossed  with  the  others  on  the  scow  that  served  as  a  ferryboat. 

Jett  took  him  to  the  Peytons'  at  Port  Royal  and  the  Misses 
Peyton  seemed  disposed  to  receive  him,  but  on  second  thought 
Miss  Sarah  Jane  decided  not  to  entertain  anyone  in  the  absence 
of  her  brother  Randolph.  A  Mr.  Catlitt  was  not  at  home;  but 
Miss  Peyton  said,  "You  can  get  him  [Booth]  in  anywhere  up  the 
road— Mr.  Garrett's  or  anywhere  else."  With  Booth  on  Ruggles' 
horse,  Ruggles  behind  Bainbridge,  Herold  behind  Jett,  the  party 
set  out  at  one  o'clock  for  the  Garrett  place,  about  three  miles  from 
Port  Royal.  As  they  rode  along,  Booth  said  that  he  did  not  intend 
to  be  captured  alive. 

The  unpretentious  Garrett  farmhouse  stood  in  a  grove  of  locust 
trees  at  the  end  of  a  lane  that  led  from  the  highway  between  Port 
Royal  and  Bowling  Green.  While  Herold  and  Bainbridge  waited 
at  the  lane  gate,  Ruggles  and  Jett  went  up  to  the  house  with 
Booth.  Richard  H.  Garrett  was  of  pronounced  Confederate  sym- 
pathies and  during  the  war  Southern  agents  in  their  comings  and 
goings  appear  to  have  found  a  ready  welcome  under  his  roof. 
The  two  older  Garrett  boys,  John  and  William,  had  just  returned 
from  service  with  the  Confederate  forces.  Jett,  who  knew  Mr. 
Garrett  by  sight  but  had  never  met  him,  introduced  Booth  as 


256  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

John  W.  Boyd,  a  Confederate  soldier  wounded  in  one  of  the  en- 
gagements around  Petersburg. 

"We  want  you,"  Jett  said,  "to  take  care  of  him  for  a  day  or  so. 
Will  you  do  it?" 

"Yes,"  Garrett  answered.  "Certainly  I  will." 

Jett,  in  his  sworn  statement  of  May  6th,  1865,24  confirmed 
members  of  the  Garrett  family  in  their  assertion  that  he  did  not 
reveal  who  "John  W.  Boyd"  actually  was.  Ruggles  and  Jett  went 
on  to  Bowling  Green,  where  they  stayed  with  the  family  of  Jett's 
sweetheart,  Miss  Goldman;  Herold  accompanied  Bainbridge  to 
the  house  of  a  Mr.  Clark,  about  three  miles  short  of  Bowling 
Green. 

Booth,  glad  of  this  opportunity  to  rest  but  mindful  that  it  must 
be  brief,  was  a  rather  silent  guest.  Besides  Mrs.  Garrett,  others  in 
the  household  were  young  Richard,  a  lad  of  eleven;  a  sister  Annie; 
and  Miss  Holloway,  Mrs.  Garrett's  sister.  Strangers  on  unknown 
errands  had  lodged  there  before  this,  during  the  war,  and  had 
gone  their  way  with  no  questions  asked.  After  a  good  night's 
sleep,  Booth  spent  most  of  the  morning  on  the  porch,  from  which 
there  was  a  view  of  rolling  fields  and  the  stretch  of  highroad. 
The  noon  meal  over,  he  went  back  to  the  porch  and  there,  in  talk 
with  him,  Annie  said  she  thought  Lincoln's  death  a  most  unfor- 
tunate thing  just  at  that  time.  He  replied  that  it  was  the  best  thing 
that  could  have  happened,  for  Andrew  Johnson,  a  drunken  sot, 
would  be  President,  a  revolution  would  ensue,  and  this  would 
benefit  the  South. 

About  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  Ruggles  and  Bainbridge 
came  riding  up,  bringing  Herold  with  them.  They  signaled  to 
Booth  and,  out  of  earshot  of  the  Garretts,  talked  with  him  for  half 
an  hour;  then  Bainbridge  and  Ruggles  started  for  Port  Royal 
and  Booth  presented  Herold  to  the  Garretts  as  "a  friend."  Just 
outside  of  Port  Royal  another  Confederate  hailed  Ruggles  and 
Bainbridge  and  said  to  them: 

"If  you  haven't  your  paroles  and  don't  want  to  be  captured, 
you'd  better  turn  back.  The  town  is  full  of  Yanks  searching  for 
Booth.  They  say  he  crossed  the  river  yesterday." 

So  the  two  at  once  rode  back  to  Garrett's  and  found  Booth 

24  In  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 


FLIGHT'S  END  257 

lying  on  the  grass  in  front  of  the  house.  He  rose,  hobbled  toward 
them,  and  asked,  "Well,  boys,  what's  in  the  wind  now?"  They 
told  him,  and  advised  that  he  and  Herold  take  cover  in  a  piece  of 
woodland  just  beyond  the  farm  buildings.  There  the  fugitives 
remained  until  dusk.  This  seemed  to  the  Garretts  a  queer  pro- 
ceeding, and  Jack  Garrett  frankly  said  so  to  "Mr.  Boyd."  It  looked 
as  if  "Mr.  Boyd"  and  friend  were  hiding  for  some  reason  none 
too  creditable;  and  Jack  said,  "You  know  what  you  have  done. 
If  you  have  got  into  any  difficulty,  you  must  leave  at  once."  And 
"Mr.  Boyd"  answered  that  they  had  been  in  a  little  "brush"  over 
in  Maryland  but  it  was  now  a  thing  of  the  past. 

That  evening  Booth  asked  Jack  to  drive  him  and  Herold  to 
Guiney's  Station,  saying  that  if  they  once  could  get  by  rail  to 
Louisa  Court  House  he  hoped  to  find  near  there  a  Maryland 
battery  which  had  not  yet  disbanded.  Jack  promised  to  do  so  in 
the  morning  and  Booth  paid  him  $10  in  advance.  At  bedtime 
Booth  asked  whether  Herold  and  himself  could  not  sleep  else- 
where than  upstairs,  and  Jack  got  a  key  and  took  them  out  to 
the  tobacco-house. 

This  building,  usually  referred  to  as  simply  a  "barn,"  was  a 
barn  of  a  special  kind.  About  sixty  feet  square,  it  was  built  with 
four-inch  spaces  between  the  boards  of  the  siding.  Before  the  war, 
considerable  tobacco  had  been  grown  on  the  Garrett  place;  and 
the  tobacco,  after  cutting,  was  hung  in  this  tobacco-house  to 
"cure"— a  process  aided  by  the  passage  of  air  through  the  open- 
ings. Farming  implements  were  stored  here  now,  and,  covered 
with  hay,  some  treasured  pieces  of  furniture  belonging  to  fami- 
lies in  Port  Royal. 

Jack  piled  up  hay  for  a  bed  and  about  nine  o'clock  locked 
Booth  and  Herold  in  for  the  night.  There  were  other  doors,  how- 
ever—doors fastened  on  the  inside,  and  Jack  and  William  feared 
that  their  guests,  of  whom  they  were  by  this  time  decidedly  sus- 
picious, might  get  out  and  steal  the  Garrett  horses.  The  brothers 
therefore  decided  to  pass  the  night  on  watch  in  a  near-by  "shuck 
house"  or  corncrib. 

About  two  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning  the  sudden  loud 
barkings  of  the  dogs  echoed  under  the  locusts.  There  was  the 
clank  of  armed  men,  the  stir  of  horses;  and,  looking  out,  the 


258  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Garretts  saw  amazedly  that  their  yard  was  alive  with  Union  cav- 
alrymen. Knocks  were  rained  on  the  side  door  of  the  house  and 
voices  demanded  admittance.  Hastily  drawing  on  some  clothes, 
Mr.  Garrett  went  to  the  door  and  opened  it.  Stern  faces  con- 
fronted him,  rough  hands  grasped  him,  and  this  angry  question 
was  thundered  at  him: 

"What  do  you  mean  by  harboring  the  murderer  of  President 
Lincoln?" 


Eleven this  was  he 


ON  the  morning  of  Sunday,  April  23rd,  when  Booth  and 
Herold  had  just  landed  on  the  Virginia  shore,  Col.  L.  C.  Baker 
sent  the  following  note  to  Maj.  Gen.  W.  S.  Hancock- 
General — I  am  directed  by  the  Secretary  of  War  to  apply  to  you  for  a 
small  cavalry  force  of  twenty-five  (25)  men,  well  mounted,  to  be  com- 
manded by  a  reliable  and  discreet  commissioned  officer. 

Can  you  furnish  them?  and  if  so,  will  you  please  direct  the  officer 
commanding  the  squad  to  report  to  me  with  the  men  at  No.  217  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  opposite  Willard's  Hotel,  at  once?  x 

By  four  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  the  24th,  orders  had  filtered 
down  through  the  appropriate  channels  and  at  last  reached  Lieut. 
Edward  P.  Doherty  as  he  sat  on  a  bench  in  Lafayette  Park.  The 
Lieutenant  belonged  to  the  Sixteenth  New  York  Cavalry,  Col. 
N.  B.  Switzer  commanding.  He  selected  twenty-six  men  of  that 
regiment— two  sergeants,  seven  corporals,  and  seventeen  privates 
—and  within  a  half-hour  had  reported  with  them  to  Colonel 
Baker.  Baker  thus  described  what  then  took  place: 

...  I  immediately  called  into  my  private  office  two  of  my  detective 
officers — Colonel  Conger  and  Lieutenant  Baker — and  informed  them 
that  I  had  information  that  Booth  and  Harrold  [Herold]  had  crossed 
the  Potomac,  at  the  same  time  pointing  out  with  a  pencil  the  place  on 
a  map  where  they  had  crossed,  and  where  I  believed  they  would  be 
found.  Lieutenant  Dougherty  [Doherty],  of  the  Sixteenth  New  York 
Cavalry,  who  commanded  this  squad,  was  introduced  to  Colonel 
Conger  and  Lieutenant  Baker,  with  the  following  remark: —  "You 
are  going  in  pursuit  of  the  assassins.  You  have  the  latest  reliable  infor- 

1  "History  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service";  pp.  530-531. 

259 


260  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

mation  concerning  them.  You  will  act  under  the  orders  of  Colonel 
Conger." 

Conger  had  been  lieutenant  colonel  of  the  First  District  of 
Columbia  Cavalry,  the  nucleus  of  which  was  a  battalion  enlisted 
for  duty  in  Washington  under  command  of  Col.  L.  C.  Baker 
and  commonly  known  as  "Baker's  Mounted  Rangers."  Colonel 
Baker  had  been  colonel  of  the  regiment,  and  Luther  B.  Baker 
(Byron  Baker),  a  cousin  of  his,  was  a  lieutenant  in  the  same  force. 
The  service  of  the  regiment  had  now  ended  and  Colonel  Baker 
had  therefore  been  obliged  to  request  a  detail  of  troops.  Lieuten- 
ant Doherty  and  his  squad  were  assigned  to  this  duty;  and,  in  a 
sworn  statement  by  Conger  and  L.  B.  Baker,  were  properly  de- 
scribed as  "subordinate,  though  necessary,  instruments." 

In  this  statement,  prepared  for  Secretary  Stanton,2  Conger  and 
L.  B.  Baker  said  that  Colonel  Baker  told  Doherty  he  "must  ren- 
der them  all  the  assistance  in  his  power"  but  gave  him  no  further 
instructions.  "Colonel  Conger,  while  in  service,  having  been  the 
senior  of  Lieutenant  Baker  in  the  same  cavalry  regiment,  and  of 
large  experience,  by  tacit  consent  as  between  them,  took  the  main 
direction  of  affairs  when  present.  In  his  absence,  Lieutenant 
Baker  was  the  acknowledged  director  of  the  expedition."  It  seems 
clear  from  this  and  from  other  sources3  that  Lieutenant  Doherty 
was  in  immediate  command  of  the  soldiers  (to  whom  Lieutenant 
Baker  once  referred  as  "dead-beats")4  but  that  he  was  in  no  sense 
the  leader  of  the  party.  Doherty's  testimony  at  the  Conspiracy 
Trial  is  at  variance  with  his  narrative  in  the  Century  Magazine? 
nearly  a  quarter-century  later,  in  which  Conger  and  L.  B.  Baker 
are  practically  ignored.  No  good  purpose  would  here  be  served 
by  entering  into  the  disputes  that  arose  in  this  connection;  but 
as  erroneous  impressions  have  been  spread,  it  is  well  they  should 
be  corrected  by  a  look  at  the  record.  It  likewise  remains  true  that 
Colonel  Baker  planned  the  expedition  and  laid  out  its  general 
course.  We  do  not  know  exactly  what  convinced  him  that  at  last 
he  had  struck  the  right  trail.  His  detectives  (including  Lieutenant 

2  "History  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service";  pp.  532-540. 

3  For  example,  Official  Records,  I,  vol.  xlvi,  pt.  1;  pp.  1317-1318. 

4  House  Reports,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session,  rept.  7;  p.  488.  He  explained  that 
they  were  the  kind  that  had  all  sorts  of  excuses  for  remaining  in  camp. 

B  January,  1890;  pp.  446-449. 


THIS  WAS  HE  261 

Baker),  carrying  with  them  likenesses  of  Herold  and  Booth,  had 
been  quietly  at  work  in  Lower  Maryland.  He  himself  in  July 
1861,  as  agent  for  General  Scott,  had  crossed  from  Port  Tobacco 
to  the  vicinity  of  Dumfries,  Virginia,  on  a  journey  to  Richmond 
and  back,  and  was  familiar  with  the  main  arteries  of  travel  across 
the  "northern  neck"  and  beyond. 

Conger's  party  embarked  about  four  o'clock,  Monday  after- 
noon, April  24th,  on  the  steamer  John  S.  Ide,  and  reached  the 
wharf  at  Belle  Plain  in  King  George  County,  Virginia  (sixty 
miles  downstream  and  a  rendezvous  of  patrol  boats),  about  ten 
in  the  evening.  It  set  out  at  once,  taking  the  way  that  led  to  the 
Rappahannock;  and  throughout  the  night  Conger,  representing 
himself  to  be  one  of  a  number  of  Confederates  seeking  escape  into 
the  interior,  visited  almost  every  house,  inquiring  about  the 
crossings  of  the  Rappahannock,  whether  ford  or  ferry,  and  about 
the  doctors  in  those  parts— for  it  was  believed  that  Booth  would 
be  needing  surgical  aid.  Nothing,  however,  was  learned.  Port 
Conway  was  not  reached  until  noon  of  the  25th,  and  there  a  brief 
halt  was  made. 

At  that  time  Lieutenant  Baker  had  a  talk  with  a  villager  named 
William  Rollins  (he  has  mistakenly  been  called  the  ferryman) 
and  showed  him  photographs  of  Booth  and  Herold.  Rollins  recog- 
nized the  portrait  of  Herold  and  said  that  Booth's  picture  resem- 
bled Herold's  companion  except  that  the  man  had  no  such  mus- 
tache. He  said  that  while  these  two  were  waiting  for  the  ferry  on 
the  preceding  afternoon,  three  Confederates  on  horseback  rode 
up,  and  that  all  five  crossed  together,  the  Confederates  having 
taken  the  strangers  under  their  protection  and  agreed  to  give 
them  a  lift.  Rollins  knew  that  one  of  them,  Jett,  had  a  sweetheart 
at  Bowling  Green,  and  he  thought  it  likely  that  all  hands  had  gone 
thither.  As  he  was  ready  to  act  as  guide,  he  was  forthwith  arrested 
for  the  sake  of  appearances,  and  the  party  was  ferried  to  Port 
Royal. 

A  short  distance  from  there,  two  horsemen,  who  apparently 
had  been  observing  the  expedition's  movements,  dashed  away  with 
Conger  and  Baker  in  hot  pursuit  and  disappeared  from  view. 
Presumably  they  were  Ruggles  and  Bainbridge.  Bowling  Green 
was  reached  between  eleven  o'clock  and  midnight.  The  horses 


262  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

were  fagged,  the  men  half  asleep.  An  old  hotel,  where  the  Gold- 
mans  lived  and  Jett  was  supposed  to  be,  loomed  dark  and  silent 
and  there  was  some  delay  before  Conger  was  admitted.  Jett  woke 
to  find  himself  under  arrest  and  struggled  into  his  trousers. 

"Where,"  questioned  Conger,  "are  the  two  men  who  came 
across  the  river  with  you?"  Baker  and  Doherty  had  followed  him 
into  the  room. 

Jett's  only  answer  was,  "Can  I  see  you  alone?"  "You  can,"  Con- 
ger said,  and  asked  Doherty  and  Baker  to  step  outside. 

"I  know  who  it  is  you  want,"  Jett  acknowledged,  "and  I'll  tell 
you  where  they  can  be  found." 

"That,"  Conger  returned,  "is  what  I  wish  to  know." 

"They're  on  the  road  to  Port  Royal,"  Jett  said,  "about  three 
miles  this  side  of  it."  He  went  on  to  explain  that  they  were  at 
Richard  Garrett's  and  professed  his  willingness  to  show  Conger 
the  place. 

"You  have  a  horse?"  Conger  inquired. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Get  it  and  be  ready  to  go,"  the  detective  ordered;  adding, 
"You  say  they're  on  the  road  to  Port  Royal?  I've  just  come  from 
there." 

After  a  pause,  Jett  said:  "Oh,  I  thought  you  came  from  Rich- 
mond. You've  come  past  them.  I  couldn't  be  sure  whether  they 
are  there  now  or  not."  In  his  heart  he  was  hoping  they  had 
escaped.  He  would  never  have  treacherously  betrayed  them;  but 
this  was  his  life  against  their  lives— and  the  war  was  over,  and  he 
was  only  eighteen. 

He  dressed  and  before  long  was  in  the  saddle,  riding  at  Con- 
ger's side  while  the  drowsy  troops  clattered  along  behind.  When 
the  party  arrived  at  the  roadside  entrance  to  Garrett's  lane,  Con- 
ger and  Baker  proceeded  to  explore  the  surroundings  and  the 
cavalrymen  dismounted,  lay  down  on  the  ground,  and  went 
promptly  to  sleep.  With  some  effort  they  were  put  in  motion  again 
and  deployed  around  the  house.  The  elder  Garrett,  after  he  had 
struck  a  light  and  opened  the  side  door,  assured  Baker  and  Con- 
ger that  the  two  men  who  had  been  stopping  there  had  gone  "to 
the  woods." 


THIS  WAS  HE  263 

"Well,  sir,"  Conger  interrupted,  "whereabouts  in  the  woods 
have  they  gone?" 

But  Garrett,  instead  of  answering,  began  to  protest  that  the 
strangers  had  remained  against  his  wish.  Conger  broke  in: 

"I  don't  want  any  long  story— I  want  to  know  where  those  men 
have  gone."  Then,  turning  to  a  cavalryman,  he  said:  "Bring  a 
rope  and  I'll  put  him  up  to  the  top  of  one  of  those  locust  trees." 

At  that  moment  Jack  Garrett  intervened,  saying,  "I'll  tell  you 
where  the  men  are  you  want  to  find.  They're  in  the  tobacco- 
house."  He  led  the  way,  and  in  a  short  time  the  greater  part  of 
Doherty's  command  was  stationed  about  the  tobacco-house,  each 
man  having  his  post  assigned  to  him  with  instructions  not  to  leave 
it  unless  ordered.  William  Garrett  now  appeared  and  Baker  sent 
him  for  the  key  of  the  tobacco-house  door.  A  lighted  candle  in 
Baker's  hand  threw  an  uncertain  splotch  of  color  on  the  darkness; 
in  the  windless  hush  the  listeners  outside  could  hear  footsteps 
within  the  building. 

Having  unlocked  the  door,  Baker  said  to  Jack  Garrett:  "You 
must  go  in  and  get  the  arms  from  those  men.  They  know  you 
and  you  can  go  in."  Then  he  called  out:  "We're  going  to  send  in 
this  man,  on  whose  premises  you  are,  to  get  your  arms,  and  you 
must  come  out  and  deliver  yourselves  up."  There  was  no  response 
but  Jack,  after  some  objection,  went  in  and  parleying  could  be 
heard.  "Damn  you,"  somebody  said,  "you  have  betrayed  me.  Get 
out  of  here!" 

Fumbling  at  the  door,  Garrett  cried,  "Let  me  out!  He's  going 
to  shoot  me." 

"You  can't  come  out,"  Baker  demurred,  "unless  you  bring  the 
arms." 

"He  won't  give  them  to  me,"  Garrett  insisted.  "Let  me  out 
quick!"  Thereupon  Baker  opened  the  door  and,  as  Garrett  jumped 
out,  immediately  closed  it.  "I'll  do  anything  for  you,"  Jack  said 
to  Baker,  "except  go  in  there  again.  He's  desperate  and  he'll  shoot 
me. 

"How  do  you  know  he  was  going  to  shoot  you?"  Conger  asked. 

"He  reached  down  to  the  hay  behind  him  to  get  his  revolver," 
said  Jack  with  conviction.  Conger  and  Baker  now  decided  to  fire 


264  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

the  tobacco-house,  and  Baker  warned  those  inside  that  this  would 
be  done  unless  they  surrendered  within  five  minutes. 

"Well,  Captain,"  was  the  reply,  "that  is  damned  hard,  to  burn 
an  innocent  man's  barn.  I'm  lame.  Give  me  a  chance.  Draw  up 
your  men  before  the  door  and  I'll  come  out  and  fight  the  whole 
command." 

"We  didn't  come  here  to  fight,"  Baker  said,  "but  to  take  you 
prisoners." 

"Let  us  have  a  little  time  to  consider,"  pleaded  the  unseen. 
"Very  well,"  said  Baker,  and  waited. 

"Captain,"  the  next  words  were,  "there's  a  man  here  who 
wants  very  much  to  surrender." 

"Let  him  hand  out  his  arms,"  Baker  answered,  unfastening  the 
lock  but  keeping  it  in  the  hasp.  A  voice  said:  "Go,  go,  you  damned 
coward!  I  wouldn't  have  you  stay  with  me."  Then  followed  raps 
on  the  door  and  another  voice  appealed,  "Let  me  out— let  me 
out!" 

"You  can't  come  out,"  Baker  declared,  "until  you  bring  your 
arms." 

"Captain,"  said  the  first  voice,  "the  arms  are  mine  and  I  shall 
keep  them.  This  man  is  guilty  of  no  crime." 

Conger  urged,  "Never  mind  the  arms.  If  we  can  get  one  of 
these  men  out,  let's  do  it."  Accordingly  Baker  opened  the  door 
and  Davy  Herold  came  out  to  be  seized  and  passed  to  the  rear, 
where  Lieutenant  Doherty  took  charge  of  him  and  bound  him  to 
a  tree.  Baker  had  all  this  while  been  holding  the  candle,  and  the 
man  in  the  tobacco-house  now  spoke  again:  "Captain,  I  consider 
you  to  be  a  brave  and  honorable  man.  I  have  had  half  a  dozen 
opportunities  to  shoot  you."  Conger  said  it  was  foolhardy  for 
Baker  to  hold  the  candle,  so  Baker  put  it  on  the  ground  about 
twenty  feet  from  the  door  and  announced  that  the  tobacco-house 
would  be  fired  at  once.  In  what  Conger  afterward  described  as  "a 
singular,  theatrical  voice,"  the  man  inside  exclaimed: 

"Well,  my  brave  boys,  you  can  prepare  a  stretcher  for  me!" 

Conger  went  around  to  the  corner  of  the  tobacco-house,  drew 
out  a  wisp  of  hay  through  one  of  the  gaps,  lit  it,  and  thrust  it 
back.  The  flames  spread  rapidly  across  the  floor  and  soon  were 
climbing  the  side  of  the  building. 


THIS  WAS  HE  265 

"One  more  stain  on  the  old  banner,"  hallooed  the  voice  in  the 
same  tone  as  before.  Baker  opened  the  door  enough  to  look  in, 
and  there,  leaning  against  a  pile  of  hay,  a  crutch  under  each  arm 
and  a  carbine  resting  on  his  hip,  was  John  Booth.  He  dropped  one 
crutch  and  started  toward  the  fire,  then  paused  and  glanced  along 
the  openings,  though  he  could  see  nothing  beyond  them.  Near  him 
lay  a  table,  upside  down.  He  took  hold  of  it  as  if  intending  to 
beat  out  the  fire  with  it  but  quickly  dropped  it  and  turned  to 
look  around  the  tobacco-house,  through  whose  roof  the  smoke 
was  already  pouring.  All  at  once  he  noticed  that  the  door  was 
partly  open  and  advanced  toward  it,  dropping  the  other  crutch 
and  moving,  as  Baker  later  said,  with  "a  kind  of  limping,  halting 
jump."  He  had  drawn  a  revolver  and,  with  carbine  in  one  hand 
and  revolver  in  the  other,  was  within  a  dozen  feet  of  the  door 
when  above  the  noise  of  the  fire  a  shot  resounded. 

Booth  gave  a  spring,  fell  in  a  heap,  rolled  partly  over.  Baker, 
thinking  he  might  try  to  get  up,  caught  him  by  the  arms  and  held 
him  as  Conger  rushed  in— then  they  saw  that  this  was  a  mortal 
wound.  "It  is  Booth,  certainly,"  Baker  said  to  Conger.  "What  on 
earth  did  you  shoot  him  for?" 

"I  didn't  shoot  him,"  said  Conger  with  emphasis.  "He  shot 
himself." 

"No,  he  didn't,"  Baker  replied,  just  as  emphatically. 

Conger  raised  Booth  then,  found  blood  oozing  from  the  right 
side  of  the  neck,  and  repeated,  "Yes,  sir,  he  shot  himself;"  and 
again  Baker  said  earnestly,  "He  did  not."  Baker  and  Conger,  as- 
sisted by  two  soldiers,  carried  him  out  and  laid  him  on  the  grass 
under  the  locust  trees.  They  threw  water  in  his  face;  his  lips 
stirred.  "Tell  mother,"  he  whispered  faintly— "tell  mother  I  die 
for  my  country." 

Meanwhile  Doherty's  men  had  attempted  to  put  out  the  fire, 
but  it  had  made  such  headway  that  nothing  effective  could  be 
done.  The  heat  in  the  vicinity  of  the  tobacco-house  had  become 
so  intense  that  Booth  was  taken  to  the  porch  of  the  Garrett 
dwelling,  and  there  a  mattress  was  doubled  up  and  he  was  leaned 
against  it.  Catching  sight  of  Jett,  he  asked  Conger,  "Did  that  man 
betray  me?"— at  which  Conger  told  him  that  Jett,  too,  was  under 
arrest.  He  revived  a  little  and  they  changed  his  position  several 


266  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

times,  but  he  could  get  no  ease.  "Kill  me— kill  me,"  he  kept 
whispering,  and  they  said,  "We  don't  want  to  kill  you— we  want 
you  to  get  well."  At  the  same  time  they  were  taking  from  him 
whatever  articles  they  could  find— the  pocket  compass,  with 
candle  drippings  still  on  it;  a  handful  of  pine  shavings,  apparently 
whittled  to  start  a  fire  with;  a  soiled  handkerchief;  a  meerschaum 
pipe,  some  tobacco,  and  a  bunch  of  matches;  a  bill  of  exchange  in 
triplicate  for  £61  12s.  iod.,  drawn  on  the  Montreal  branch  of 
the  Ontario  Bank;  a  crystal  scarf  pin  (the  gift  of  Dan  Bryant, 
the  minstrel);  a  pocket  knife,  greenbacks,  keys;  a  little  Catholic 
medal;  a  leather-bound  memorandum  book.  These  things  are 
specified  in  the  record. 

Conger  picked  some  of  the  articles— including  the  compass,  the 
bill  of  exchange,  and  the  memorandum  book— and  set  out  post- 
haste for  Belle  Plain.6  From  that  point  a  steamer  conveyed  him 
back  to  Washington  and  about  five  o'clock  he  reported  at  the 
headquarters  of  Colonel  Baker,  who  "felt  like  raising  a  shout  of 
joy"  and  immediately  drove  him  to  Stanton's  residence  at  1325 
K  Street.  "We  have  got  Booth!"  were  Baker's  first  words  as  he 
rushed  into  the  Secretary's  presence.7 

Summoned  from  Port  Royal,  Doctor  Urquhart  said  there  was 
no  hope  for  the  wounded  man,  who  steadily  grew  weaker.  Miss 
Holloway,  Mrs.  Garrett's  sister,  brought  a  pillow  and  placed  it 
under  Booth's  head,  moistened  his  lips,  smoothed  his  forehead. 
He  asked  that  his  paralyzed  arms  be  lifted;  viewed  his  hands  and 
murmured  despairingly,  "Useless,  useless!"  About  dawn,  between 
five  o'clock  and  six,  he  gasped— and  his  pain  was  ended.  "A  stray 
curl  that  had  fallen  over  my  fingers  .  .  .  ,"  Miss  Holloway  wrote, 
"was  cut  off  by  Dr.  Urquhart  and  given  to  me."  8  It  was  April 
26th,  the  day  when  Gen.  J.  E.  Johnston  put  his  name  to  the  revised 
terms  of  surrender.  Booth's  field  glass,  which  he  had  left  on  a  book- 
case, was  sent  by  Miss  Holloway  to  her  mother's,  about  eight 
miles  distant,  and  later  recovered  by  Lieutenant  Baker.  It  was 
the  field  glass,  in  a  package  that  Weichmann  said  looked  "like 

6  Surratt  Trial,  vol.  ii,  p.  311.  House  Reports,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session,  rept. 
7;  pp.  329,  487. 

7  "History  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service";  p.  540. 

8  From  her  MS.  in  the  Confederate  Museum,  Richmond. 


THIS  WAS  HE  267 

perhaps  two  or  three  saucers  wrapped  up,"  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had 
casually  handed  to  Mrs.  Offutt  at  Surrattsville  on  April  14th. 
Lloyd,  Mrs.  Offutt's  brother-in-law,  put  it  with  the  carbines  and 
other  things  left  to  his  care  by  John  Surratt  when  the  abduction 
scheme  was  in  planning;  and  he  had  given  it,  with  one  carbine, 
to  the  urgent  Davy  Herold. 

Booth's  face  soon  became  much  disfigured.  Baker  and  Doherty 
sewed  up  the  body  closely  in  Baker's  own  army  blanket,  and  a 
Negro  laborer  thereabouts  was  hired  to  drive  it  to  Belle  Plain  in 
his  ramshackle  wagon.  Baker,  attended  by  a  corporal  and  an  or- 
derly, started  on  ahead  with  the  wagon,  leaving  Doherty  in  charge 
of  Davy  Herold,  who  babbled  of  his  innocence  and  professed  that 
he  had  merely  happened  to  be  an  accidental  traveling  companion 
of  the  dead  man.  (Booth  he  at  first  called  Boyd,  but  this  pretense 
soon  was  abandoned.)  The  mysterious  burden,  with  nothing  vis- 
ible save  a  pair  of  feet,  moved  through  the  April  countryside. 
Though  roped  down,  the  bundle  shook  restively;  and  G.  A. 
Townsend  impressed  his  readers  with  an  account  of  how  blood 
dripped  through  the  floor  boards  and  upon  Ned  Freeman's  black 
hands,  and  how  Ned  in  superstitious  horror  cried  out,  "It'll  never 
wash  off— it's  murderer's  blood!" 

Men  also  dwelt  upon  the  strange  coincidence  by  which  John 
Booth's  wound  resembled  the  wound  he  had  inflicted  upon  Lin- 
coln. As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  such  resemblance  existed.  In  Lin- 
coln's case  the  bullet  entered  the  back  of  the  head  below  the 
left  ear  and  ploughed  its  way  diagonally  upward,  lodging  behind 
the  right  eye.  In  Booth's  case  the  bullet  entered  the  right  side  of 
the  neck,  fractured  two  vertebrae,  and  passed  out  at  the  left, 
making  a  hole  (as  Baker  said)  through  "both  sides  of  his  collar." 
The  words  of  the  official  description  are: 

A  conoidal  pistol  ball  entered  the  right  side,  comminuting  the  base 
of  the  right  lamina  of  the  fourth  vertebra,  fracturing  it  longitudinally 
and  separating  it  from  the  spinous  process,  at  the  same  time  fracturing 
the  fifth  thru  its  pedicle  and  involving  that  transverse  process.  The 
missile  passed  directly  thru  the  canal  with  a  slight  inclination  down- 
ward and  to  the  rear[,]  emerging  thru  the  left  bases  of  the  fourth  and 
fifth  laminae,  which  are  comminuted,  and  from  which  fragments  were 
embedded  in  the  muscles  of  the  neck.  The  bullet  in  its  course  avoided 
the  large  cervical  vessels. 


268  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

The  spinal  cord  was  perforated  opposite  the  fourth  and  fifth  ver- 
tebras.9 

Booth  was  fully  identified  at  Garrett's.  Even  before  Lieutenant 
Baker,  quickly  opening  the  door  of  the  tobacco-house,  saw  a 
lame  man  "with  a  crutch  under  each  arm,"  Booth's  manner  was 
remarked  as  distinctive:  "From  the  tone  of  his  voice,  and  his 
theatrical  style,  every  word  seemed  to  be  studied,"  was  Baker's 
comment.10  Conger,  who  had  known  John  Booth  by  sight  in  Wash- 
ington and  had  been  struck  by  John's  resemblance  to  Edwin,  was 
wholly  satisfied  as  to  the  identity  of  the  man  shot  at  Garrett's.11 
Lieutenant  Baker  carried  a  photograph  of  John:  "I  had  his  like- 
ness," Baker  testified,  "and  identified  him  by  it."  12  Among  the 
personal  effects  taken  from  the  man  on  Garrett's  porch  were  not 
only  a  bill  of  exchange  made  payable  to  Booth's  order,  and  a 
memorandum  book  undeniably  his,  but  also  a  crystal  pin  fastened 
to  the  undershirt  and  bearing  an  inscription  showing  it  to  be  a 
gift  of  Dan  Bryant  to  John  Booth.  Who  but  John  Booth  could 
have  asked  regarding  Jett:  "Did  that  man  betray  me?" 

William  Lightfoot  of  Port  Royal,  having  served  in  the  Ninth 
Virginia  Cavalry,  had  returned  after  Lee's  surrender  and  was  at 
breakfast  that  morning  of  April  26th  when  he  heard  talk  of  a 
shooting  at  Garrett's.  He  went  up  there  directly  and  saw  the 
body  of  a  man  lying  on  the  porch— Booth,  they  all  said.  Lightfoot 
was  familiar  with  Booth's  photographs,  which  he  had  seen  com- 
monly displayed,  with  those  of  other  actors,  in  Richmond  before 
the  war.  "I  knew  him  right  away,"  he  said  in  1928,  "and  never 
thought  of  it  being  possible  that  it  could  be  anybody  else."  13 

The  Garretts  recognized  the  man  taken  from  the  burning  to- 
bacco-house as  the  same  that  had  been  presented  to  them  by  Jett 
and  entertained  in  their  home.  Young  Richard  Garrett  became  in 
after  years  the  Rev.  Dr.  R.  B.  Garrett,  who  said  decisively: 

His  [Booth's]  remains  were  most  thoroughly  identified  from  a  photo- 
graph and  the  printed  description  that  was  possessed  by  the  soldiers. 

9  From  the  exhibit  in  the  Army  Medical  Museum,  Washington. 

10  House  Reports,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session,  rept.  7;  p.  488. 
u  Poore,  vol.  i,  p.  322. 

12  House  Report,  p.  487. 

"Lewis,  "Myths  after  Lincoln";  pp.  282-283. 


THIS  WAS  HE  269 

...  I  was  there  and  present  at  the  identification.  .  .  .  There  was  the 
tattoo  mark  of  his  initials  on  the  arm,  and  the  comparison  with  the 
picture  was  perfect.  God  never  made  two  men  as  exactly  alike  as  that 
dead  man  and  the  one  whose  photograph  there  could  be  no  doubt  was 
Booth's.  Point  by  point  the  printed  description  held  in  the  detective's 
hand  was  followed  out.  Height,  color  of  hair  and  eyes,  every  scar  and 
mark  tallied  exactly.  .  .  .14 

On  March  1  ith,  1877,  this  same  R.  B.  Garrett  had  written  from 
Leetown,  West  Virginia,  a  letter  to  Edwin  Booth  in  which  he 
said: 

An  Editor  of  a  Baltimore  paper  has  found  out  that  I  have  in  my 
possession  a  lock  of  your  brother's  hair  cut  from  brow  after  he  was 
dead,  and  that  editor  has  written  to  me  asking  for  the  hair  for  some 
member  of  your  family.  What  I  wish  to  know  is  this.  Did  you  or  any 
member  of  your  family  authorize  him  to  do  this?  I  am  perfectly  willing 
to  give  up  the  hair  to  any  of  your  brother's  relatives  but  to  no  one  else. 

We  have  never  had  an  opportunity  of  telling  you  before  but  we  will 
tell  you  now  that  my  mother  and  sisters  did  everything  in  their  power 
to  make  your  brother  comfortable  in  his  last  hours  even  when  they  did 
not  know  who  he  was,  and  had  they  known  it  would  have  made  no 
change  in  them.15 

Obviously  the  Garretts  had  no  doubts  as  to  Booth's  identity. 

Arguments  before  long  developed  regarding  his  wound.  Lieu- 
tenant Baker's  account  is  straightforward  enough.  Looking 
through  the  doorway  of  the  tobacco-house,  he  had  Booth  full  in 
view,  highlighted  by  the  mounting  flames  and  but  a  few  feet 
away  when  the  report  of  a  shot  was  heard.  Baker  said  definitely 
that  Booth  did  not  shoot  himself,  that  the  shot  came  from  outside 
the  tobacco-house;  and  at  first  he  suspected  Conger.  When  Con- 
ger denied  having  fired  the  shot,  Baker  rejoined,  "Well,  the  man 
who  did  goes  back  under  arrest."  After  Booth  had  been  laid 
on  the  porch,  Baker  asked  Conger  whether  he  had  found  the 
man,  and  Conger  answered,  "No,  but  I  will."  According  to  Do- 
ner ty,  Conger  did  find  the  man— Sergt.  "Boston"  Corbett,  top 

"From  an  interview  (at  Norfolk,  Virginia)  in  the  Theatre  Collection  of  the 
New  York  Public  Library. 

15  From  the  original  at  The  Players  and  here  printed  for  the  first  time  by  special 
permission. 


270  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

sergeant  of  the  detail  and  the  only  man  picked  from  Doherty's 
own  company. 

"Why  in  hell  did  you  shoot  without  orders?"  raged  Conger. 

Assuming  the  position  of  a  soldier,  Corbett  saluted  and  gravely 
replied,  "Colonel,  Providence  directed  me."  Which,  to  use  Baker's 
expression,  "rather  nonplussed  the  Colonel,"  who  for  the  time 
being  had  nothing  further  to  say. 

Thomas  Corbett,  hatter  by  trade  and  a  fine  workman,  took  the 
name  Boston  from  that  of  the  city  in  which  he  had  experienced 
conversion.  Thenceforward  he  was  known  as  a  religious  enthusi- 
ast. He  volunteered  four  times  during  the  war,  was  fearless  in 
battle  and  a  crack  shot.  It  was  told  that  once,  when  with  a  detach- 
ment of  the  Sixteenth  New  York  Cavalry  hemmed  in  by  Mosby 
near  Culpeper,  he  killed  seven  of  the  enemy  before  he  surren- 
dered, and  that,  like  one  of  Cromwell's  Ironsides,  he  shouted  as 
each  man  fell,  "Amen!  Glory  to  God!"  Admiring  his  pluck,  Mosby 
spared  him  for  the  horrors  of  Andersonville,  from  which  an  ex- 
change delivered  him  none  too  soon.16 

Lieutenant  Doherty  wrote  that  he  himself  stationed  Corbett 
at  an  opening  in  the  tobacco-house;17  and,  armed  with  a  Colt's 
revolver,  Corbett  (by  his  own  testimony)  kept  his  eye  steadily  on 
Booth  "to  see  that  he  did  no  harm."  18  Convinced  that  John  was 
about  to  start  a  fight,  the  Sergeant  drew  trigger.  "I  aimed  at  his 
body,"  he  said;  "I  did  not  want  to  kill  him.  ...  I  think  he 
stooped  to  pick  up  something  just  as  I  fired.  That  may  probably 
account  for  his  receiving  the  ball  in  the  head."  19 

Arrested  and  held  for  court-martial,  Corbett  was  brought  before 
Stanton,  with  Doherty  and  others  present.  Doherty  stated  that 
Corbett,  though  he  shot  without  orders,  was  a  brave  and  true 
soldier  and  had  three  times  requested  permission  to  enter  the 
tobacco-house  and  fetch  out  Booth.  Stanton  said:  "The  rebel  is 
dead;  the  patriot  lives— has  saved  us  continued  excitement,  delay, 
and  expense.  The  patriot  is  released."  20  Both  then  and  later, 
Lieutenant  Doherty  maintained  that  Booth  was  shot  by  Corbett. 

"New  York  Times,  May  2,  1865;  p.  1. 

17  Century  Magazine,  Jan.  1890;  p.  449. 

"Poore,  vol.  i,  pp.  323-325. 

"New  York  Herald,  Apr.  28,  1865;  p.  1. 

20  B.  B.  Johnson:  "Abraham  Lincoln  and  Boston  Corbett";  pp.  34-38. 


THIS  WAS  HE  271 

Corbett  seems  to  have  expected  that  some  credit  would  be  be- 
stowed on  him,  as  upon  one  that  had  done  well  for  his  country; 
but  his  share  in  the  reward  was  no  more  than  that  of  the  other 
members  of  Doherty's  squad  (fixed  originally  at  $1,000,  afterward 
increased  to  $1,653.85),  and  journalists  portrayed  him  as  a  luna- 
tic. Austin  Potter,  also  sergeant  in  the  Sixteenth  New  York 
Cavalry,  denied  that  Corbett  when  in  the  service  was,  as  he  had 
been  pictured,  "gloomy  and  fanatical."  Potter  wrote:  "My  recol- 
lection of  him— and  we  soldiers  learned  to  know  one  another  as 
we  roughed  it  together  on  picket  and  on  scout— is  the  very  oppo- 
site to  this.  I  have  never  known  a  person  so  cheerful  and  heroic. 
.  .  .  His  example  has  been  a  source  of  inspiration  to  me  through 
all  the  years  since  last  we  parted."  21 

After  his  experiences  in  connection  with  the  affair  at  Garrett's, 
Corbett  became  somewhat  morose  and  frequently  said  that  officials 
in  Washington  were  indignant  because  his  bullet  had  robbed  them 
of  the  opportunity  to  win  coveted  glory  by  means  of  the  trial  and 
execution  of  Booth.  R.  B.  Hoover,  who  met  Corbett  at  a  soldiers' 
reunion  at  Caldwell,  Ohio,  in  1875,  tells  of  his  leading  a  prayer 
meeting  in  the  village  church,22  and  adds: 

He  was  always  well  armed,  in  self-defence,  as  he  explained,  and  his 
experience  while  at  Caldwell  showed  that  he  had  some  reason  to  fear 
violence.  He  got  into  an  exciting  argument  with  several  men  one  after- 
noon over  the  question  as  to  whether  Booth  had  really  been  killed  at 
all.  Hot  words  ensued,  a  rush  was  made  towards  Corbett,  and  in  an 
instant  the  gleaming  barrel  of  his  revolver  flashed  in  the  faces  of  his 
opponents. 

Taking  up  eighty  acres  of  homesteading  land  near  Concordia, 
Kansas,  Corbett,  never  much  of  a  farmer,  built  a  shanty  and  won 
local  respect  by  his  skill  in  bringing  down  crows  and  hawks  on  the 
wing.  He  wore  an  old  army  belt,  from  which  dangled  a  brace  of 
pistols;  but  as  a  neighbor  observed,  "in  these  early  days  in  Kansas 
little  attention  was  paid  to  a  man  just  because  he  felt  more  at 
ease  in  a  pistol  belt  than  out  of  one."  Friends  obtained  his  ap- 
pointment as  assistant  doorkeeper  at  the  state  capitol  in  Topeka. 
A  story  has  often  been  told  of  how  he  suddenly  went  berserk  and, 

21  Century  Magazine,  Apr.  1890;  pp.  957-958. 

23  North  American  Review,  Sept.  1889;  pp.  382-384. 


272  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

with  a  revolver  in  each  hand,  attempted  to  kill  the  speaker  of 
the  House  and  others.  According  to  Gomer  T.  Davies,  editor  of 
The  Kansan  and  at  that  time  a  member  of  the  House,  Corbett 
simply  broke  up  a  "mock  session"  being  held  by  pages,  clerks,  and 
other  employees.  The  acting  speaker  requested  "the  Reverend 
So-and-so"  to  invoke  a  blessing,  and  Corbett,  to  whom  this  was 
blasphemy,  flashed  a  thirty-eight.23 

He  was  seized  and  led  to  jail.  Charles  Curtis,  prosecuting 
attorney  of  the  county  and  subsequently  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States,  succeeded  in  having  him  adjudged  insane  and  he 
was  placed  in  a  state  institution  at  Topeka. 

Having  escaped  to  Neodesha,  he  remained  there  two  days  in 
the  house  of  Richard  Thatcher,  who  had  been  a  fellow  prisoner 
at  Andersonville;  then  he  disappeared  forever.  He  had  said  he 
was  going  to  Mexico  (where,  some  believed,  John  Booth  had 
hoped  to  find  a  refuge),  and  rumor  made  him  a  patent-medicine 
vendor  roaming  the  South  or  a  revivalist  in  the  Texas  "Pan- 
handle." A  claimant  of  his  pension  was  shown  to  be  an  impostor 
and  was  sentenced  by  a  district  court  to  three  years  in  the  Atlanta 
Penitentiary.  A  real  mystery  still  veils  the  fate  of  Thomas  ("Bos- 
ton") Corbett. 

Ruggles  with  the  utmost  positiveness  declared  that  Booth 
"placed  his  pistol  to  the  back  of  his  head,  and  took  his  own  life." 
Corbett,  Ruggles  said,  would  not,  from  the  point  at  which  he 
stood,  have  been  able  to  see  Booth;  furthermore,  one  chamber 
of  Booth's  revolver  was  empty.24  For  none  of  these  statements  did 
Ruggles,  who  was  not  present,  give  any  authority.  Conger,  who 
was  there,  testified,  "...  I  was  by  the  side  of  the  tobacco  house. 
The  man  who  shot  him  [Booth]  was  on  the  next  side  around  the 
corner  of  the  house  [that  is,  the  tobacco-house]."  25  Corbett  was 
looking  through  a  four-inch  opening  and  Booth,  in  the  glare  of 
that  burning  interior,  would  have  been  plainly  visible. 

As  a  witness  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial,  Conger  explicitly  stated 
that  a  Spencer  carbine  and  two  revolvers  were  taken  from  Booth 

33  A.  T.  Reid  in  Scribner's  Magazine,  July  1929;  p.  15. 

34  Century  Magazine,  Jan.  1890;  p.  446. 

25  House  Reports,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session,  rept.  7;  p.  325. 


THIS  WAS  HE  273 

and  that  all  three  weapons  were  loaded.  Had  there  been  an  empty 
chamber  in  any  of  them,  he  would  surely  have  mentioned  the  fact; 
but  even  that  would  not  in  itself  have  proved  Booth  to  be  a  suicide. 
At  the  time  Booth  fell,  Lieutenant  Baker  had  him  full  in  view; 
and,  knowing  that  the  shot  had  been  fired  from  outside,  Baker 
at  first  attributed  it  to  Conger.  Baker's  opinion  of  the  John  Booth 
he  then  saw  advancing  toward  the  opened  door  was  expressed  in 
these  words: 

I  think  he  would  have  come  out  and  fought  the  whole  command. 
...  I  think  he  would  have  sold  his  life  as  dearly  and  bravely  as  possible. 

When  Ned  Freeman's  rickety  wagon  at  last  had  reached  Belle 
Plain,  where  the  John  S.  Ide  lay  waiting,  the  body  was  placed  on 
deck;  and  so  dog-tired  was  Lieutenant  Baker  that,  after  calling 
for  a  guard,  he  slumped  down  there.  The  next  thing  he  knew, 
the  vessel  was  approaching  the  Navy  Yard  and  Col.  L.  C.  Baker 
was  shaking  him  and  telling  him  to  get  up.  At  Stanton's  order, 
the  Colonel,  with  Major  Eckert,  had  gone  by  steamer  to  Alex- 
andria to  meet  the  Ide,  which  had  arrived  at  twenty  minutes  to 
eleven. 

In  the  Eastern  Branch,  not  far  from  the  Navy  Yard,  the  Mon- 
tauk  rode  at  anchor.  Paine,  O'Laughlin,  Spangler,  and  Atzerodt 
were  confined  on  board,  having  for  greater  security  been  trans- 
ferred from  the  Old  Capitol.  Each  had  an  iron  weight  attached  to 
one  leg  by  a  heavy  chain,  each  wore  handcuffs  joined  by  a  rigid 
bar;  canvas  hoods  were  tied  over  their  heads,  covering  their  faces; 
and  they  were  guarded  by  a  detail  of  marines  under  command  of 
Captain  Monroe.  Spangler  afterward  wrote  that  he  "could  not  see 
daylight"  and  that  eating  was  so  difficult  that  even  the  guard  took 
pity  on  him.26  Sergeant  Peddicord  of  the  marine  guard  told  how 
stalwart  Paine  resented  the  hood,  breaking  silence  to  ask,  "What 
is  that  for?"  Mrs.  Surratt  (exempt  from  hood  and  rigid  shackles), 
Arnold,  and  others  were  aboard  the  monitor  Saugus,  anchored 
near. 

At  midnight  Sergeant  Peddicord,  on  waking  his  relief,  Sergeant 

26  John  T.  Ford  Papers.  It  has  been  stated  that  Paine  was  on  the  Saugus.  He  may 
later  have  been  removed  thither;  but  he  was  brought,  Peddicord  says  definitely, 
from  shore  to  the  Montauk  and  confined  in  the  chain  locker. 


274  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Hartley,  told  him  that  Captain  Monroe  and  Lieutenant  Young 
were  "looking  for  something  to  come  up  the  river."  He  then 
turned  in  until  six  o'clock.  The  sergeants  had  berths  inside  the 
monitor's  turret,  while  the  remainder  of  the  guard  slept  on  deck 
beneath  an  awning.  In  the  morning  at  six,  Hartley  said  to  Peddi- 
cord,  "Come  out  here.  I  have  something  for  you."  On  a  carpen- 
ter's bench  under  the  awning  lay  the  body  of  a  man  wrapped  in  a 
soldier's  blanket. 

"Take  charge  of  this  body,"  Hartley  ordered,  "and  allow  no  one 
to  touch  it  without  orders  from  Colonel  Baker." 

Peddicord  stated  in  1903  (he  was  then  Dr.  J.  M.  Peddicord, 
a  dentist  of  Roanoke,  Virginia): 

It  was  the  body  of  the  assassin,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  which  had  been 
brought  up  the  river  during  the  night.  ...  At  breakfast,  when  relieved 
by  Hartley  while  I  was  eating,  we  unwrapped  the  face  and  compared  it 
with  a  photograph,  and  I  also  remember  the  letters  in  India  ink,  on  the 
back  of  his  hand,  in  pale,  straggling  characters,  "J.  W.  B.,"  as  a  boy 
would  have  done  it.27 

These  were  the  very  same  initials  that,  with  like  phraseology, 
Asia  Booth  Clarke  (writing  in  distant  England  a  biographical 
sketch  that  first  saw  the  light  in  1938)  said  John,  "when  a  little 
boy,"  had  "clumsily  marked." 

Soon  barges  were  rowed  out  from  the  Navy  Yard  to  the  moni- 
tor, bringing  Holt,  the  Judge  Advocate  General;  unwearied 
Colonel  Baker;  Surgeon-General  J.  K.  Barnes,  attended  by  a 
hospital  steward  with  a  case  of  instruments.  To  the  throngs  that 
collected  along  the  shore,  the  presence  of  these  three  was  in  itself 
a  token  of  some  grave  matter  afoot.  Others,  officers  and  civilians, 
joined  the  group  around  the  carpenter's  bench,  where  Sergeant 
Peddicord  remained  on  duty. 

In  the  course  of  that  forenoon  of  April  27th  an  autopsy  was 
held  under  the  direction  of  Surgeon-General  Barnes.  Peddicord 
saw  it  all,  and  before  it  was  over  he  managed  to  snip  from  "about 
the  top"  of  the  head  a  "lock  of  fine  black  hair." 

The  bandage  was  carefully  removed  from  the  injured  leg, 
which  was  then  examined;  and  after  this  the  wound  in  the  neck 
was  duly  inspected.  An  assistant  cut  out  the  third,  fourth,  and 

3T  Roanoke  Evening  News,  June  6,  1903. 


THIS  WAS  HE  275 

fifth  vertebrae,  the  object  being  to  trace  unmistakably  the  entire 
course  of  the  fatal  bullet.  To  show  the  fracture  and  lesion  that 
caused  death,  these  vertebras,  with  the  accompanying  bit  of 
spinal  cord,  were  placed  among  the  exhibits  of  the  Army  Medical 
Museum.  There  was  no  truth  whatever  in  the  report  that  the 
body  was  dissected,  though  one  alleged  eyewitness  said  he  had 
"watched  his  opportunity"  and  acquired  a  fragment  as  a  sou- 
venir! 28  Equally  false  were  assertions  that  the  head  had  been 
severed  from  the  body  and  either  put  in  the  Museum  or  otherwise 
disposed  of,  and  that  the  heart  had  been  taken  out.29 

At  this  time  (in  the  words  of  Colonel  Baker,  who  was  present) 
the  identity  of  the  body  was  established  "beyond  all  cavil."  For 
this  purpose  "a  kind  of  military  coroner's  jury"  had  been  assem- 
bled,30 and  under  oath  a  number  of  these  persons  stated  un- 
equivocally their  recognition.  The  following  testimony  has  been 
transcribed  from  the  original  depositions  in  the  archives  of  the 
Judge  Advocate  General.  These  were  taken  on  board  the  monitor 
by  Holt  on  the  27th,  sworn  and  subscribed  to  on  the  28th. 

— Charles  Dawson,  head  clerk  in  the  office  of  the  National  Hotel,  where 

John  Booth  lived;  well  acquainted  with  him,  thoroughly  familiar  with 

his  appearance: 

Question. — Have  you  just  examined  the  dead  body  which  is  claimed  to 

be  that  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  on  board  of  this  vessel? 

Answer. — I  have. 

Question. — Will  you  state  whether  or  not  in  your  judgment  it  is  the 

body  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth? 

Answer. — I  distinctly  recognize  it  as  the  body  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth — first, 

from  the  general  appearance;  next,  from  the  India-ink  letters  "J.W.B." 

on  his  wrist,  which  I  have  very  frequently  noticed;  and  then  by  a  Scar 

on  the  neck.  I  also  recognize  the  vest  as  that  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth. 

Question. — On  which  hand  or  wrist  are  the  India-ink  initials  referred 

to? 

Answer. — On  the  left. 

— Seaton  Munroe,  prominent  attorney-at-law,  Washington,  who  knew 

28  New  York  Times,  Apr.  29,  1865;  P-  *• 

29  L.  C.  Baker,  "History";  p.  541.  Baker's  testimony  in  1867  before  the  House 
Committee  on  the  Judiciary.  New  York  Clipper,  May  20,  1865.  It  was  also  said  that 
the  broken  leg  had  been  detached   (New  York  World,  Feb.  14,  1869). 

30 North  American  Review,  Apr.  1896;  p.  431. 


276  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Booth  socially,  was  "very  familiar"  with  his  appearance,  and  made 

"close  inspection  of  the  features  several  times": 

Question. — What  is  your  opinion  as  to  its  being  the  dead  body  of  J. 

Wilkes  Booth? 

Answer. — I  am  confident  that  it  is  the  dead  body  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth. 

Question. — Are  there  any  special  marks  which  enable  you  to  recognize 

it? 

Answer. — I  recognize  it  only  from  its  general  appearance,  in  which  I  do 

not  think  I  can  be  mistaken. 

— Charles  M.  Collins,  holding  the  post  of  captain's  clerk  and  signal 
officer  on  board  the  Montauk,  who  since  1862  had  known  John  Booth 
by  sight  and  for  about  six  weeks  had  known  him  personally: 
Question. — State  whether,  in  your  judgment  or  opinion,  it  is  the  body 
of  J.  Wilkes  Booth? 

Answer. — I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  it  is  the  body  of  J.  Wilkes 
Booth.  I  recognized  it  at  two  o'clock  this  morning  when  it  was  brought 
on  board. 

— Acting  Master  William  W.  Crowninshield,  U.S.N.,  who  had  known 
Booth  for  about  a  month  and  a  half  and  was  familiar  with  his  features: 

I  feel  satisfied  that  it  is  the  body  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth. 
Question. — Have  you  seen  him  frequently? 
Answer. — Yes,  sir. 

Question. — And  feel  that  you  cannot  be  mistaken? 
Answer. — I  cannot  be  mistaken. 

— Dr.  John  F.  May,  probably  Washington's  leading  surgeon,  who  had 
removed  a  fibroid  tumor  from  Booth's  neck: 

I  told  the  Surgeon  General  these  facts  this  morning,  before  I  looked 
at  the  cicatrix  at  all,  and  said  that  he  would  probably  find  a  large  ugly 
looking  Scar,  instead  of  a  neat  line.  He  said  it  corresponded  exactly 
with  my  description.  The  Scar  looks  as  much  like  the  effect  of  a  burn 
as  the  cicatrix  from  a  surgical  operation. 

Question. — Do  you  recognize  the  body  as  that  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth  from 
its  general  appearance,  and  also  from  the  particular  appearance  of  the 
Scar? 

Answer. — I  do  recognize  it,  though  it  is  very  much  altered  since  I  saw 
Booth.  It  looks  to  me  much  older,  and  in  appearance  much  more 
freckled  than  he  was.  I  do  not  recollect  that  he  was  at  all  freckled.  I 
have  no  doubt  it  is  his  body.  I  recognize  the  features.  When  he  came  to 
my  office,  he  had  no  beard  excepting  a  moustache. 
Question. — From  the  nature  of  this  wound,  even  apart  from  the  gen- 


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From  the  original  at  The  Players 

JOHN  T.  FORD'S  TELEGRAM  TO  EDWIN  BOOTH  ON  THE  NIGHT 
OF  MONDAY,  FEBRUARY  15TH,  1869 


THIS  WAS  HE  277 

eral  appearance,  you  could  not  be  mistaken  as  to  the  identity  of  the 

body? 

Answer. — From  the  Scar  in  connection  with  the  recognition  of  the 

features,  which  though  much  changed  and  altered,  still  have  the  same 

appearance,  I  think  I  cannot  be  mistaken.  I  recognize  the  likeness. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  person  from  whom  I  took  the  tumor,  and 

that  it  is  the  body  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth. 

In  his  "The  Mark  of  the  Scalpel,"  a  paper  written  in  January 
1887,  Doctor  May  fully  explained  the  distinctive  "Scar"  referred 
to  by  himself  and  Dawson.31  A  lump  on  his  neck— "on  the  back  of 
it  and  rather  on  the  left  side"— had  annoyed  John  Booth  and 
he  consulted  the  Doctor,  who  advised  immediate  removal.  The 
Doctor  told  him,  however,  that  absolute  rest  was  desirable,  in 
order  that  the  edges  of  the  surgical  wound  might  firmly  unite  by 
"primary  adhesion"  and  leave  "so  fine  a  line  of  cicatrix  as  scarcely 
to  be  noticed."  Booth  explained  that  absolute  rest  was  out  of  the 
question,  as  he  was  playing  an  engagement  with  Charlotte  Cush- 
man;  but  he  promised  to  avoid  strain  upon  the  wound.  He  par- 
ticularly asked  the  Doctor  to  say,  if  questioned,  that  a  bullet  had 
been  extracted;  but  he  gave  no  reason  for  this  and  the  Doctor 
made  no  promises.32 

The  union  was  at  first  perfect  but  one  morning  Booth  entered 
the  Doctor's  office  with  the  flesh  torn  and  gaping.  He  said  that 
Miss  Cushman,  a  robust  performer,  had  thrown  her  arm  so 
vigorously  around  him  as  to  break  open  the  wound.  Eventually 
new  tissue  formed  but  "a  large  and  ugly  scar"  remained.  In  1867  33 
Doctor  May  gave  the  following  testimony: 

Q.  Describe  the  appearance  of  the  scar  afterwards. 

A.  It  was  a  scar  of  some  width,  that  would  not  have  been  made  by  a 
surgical  operation  if  the  wound  had  united  properly,  which  it  did 
before  he  had  it  torn  open.  It  then  left  a  broad,  ugly-looking  scar,  pro- 
duced by  the  granulating  process,  which  is  the  case  with  wounds  torn 
open.  They  do  not  unite  the  second  time  generally. 

Q.  Any  discoloration? 

31  This  paper  was  read  by  W.  H.  Dennis  before  the  Columbia  Historical  Society  of 
Washington  on  Feb.  9,  1909,  and  printed  in  the  Records  of  the  Society  for  1910 

(pp.  51-68). 

32  See  Chapter  Seven  of  the  present  volume  for  the  barber-shop  repartee  on  the 
morning  of  Apr.  14. 

33  At  the  Surratt  Trial   (The  Reporter,  vol.  iii,  pp.  236-237). 


278  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

A.  Oh,  yes.  The  scar  is  usually  of  a  whiter  color  after  a  time.  It  is 
first  of  a  redder  color,  but  in  the  course  of  time  the  cicatrix  becomes 
rather  whiter  and  more  dense. 

The  Doctor  said  that  Booth  had  come  to  him  at  least  a  year,  pos- 
sibly a  year  and  a  half,  before  the  murder. 

At  the  Conspiracy  Trial  in  1865  Surgeon-General  Barnes  gave 
this  testimony:34 

Q.  State  whether  or  not  you  made  an  examination  of  the  body  of  J.  W. 

Booth  after  his  death,  when  brought  to  this  city. 
A.  I  did. 

Q.  Describe  to  the  Court  the  scar  which  is  alleged  to  have  been  on  his 
neck. 

A.  The  scar  on  the  left  side  of  the  neck  was  occasioned  by  an  operation 
performed  by  Dr.  May,  of  this  city,  for  the  removal  of  a  tumor, 
some  months  previously  to  Booth's  death. 

Q.  What  was  its  peculiar  appearance,  if  it  had  any  .  .  .  ? 

A.  It  looked  like  the  scar  of  a  burn,  instead  of  an  incision;  which  Dr. 

May  explained  from  the  fact  that  the  wound  was  torn  open  on  the 

stage,  when  nearly  healed. 
Q.  How  near  was  it  to  the  ear? 
A.  Three  inches  below  the  ear,  upon  the  large  muscle  of  the  neck. 

This  was  obviously  very  different  from  the  scar  that  the  perjured 
Mary  Hudspeth  (or  Hodspeth)  declared  she  saw  in  New  York— a 
scar  "like  a  bite"— on  the  cheek  of  a  young  man  with  false  whis- 
kers and  small,  beautiful  hands35— the  young  man  being,  of  course, 
John  Booth! 

In  "The  Mark  of  the  Scalpel"  Doctor  May  wrote  that  after 
having  seen  Booth  "in  the  vigor  of  life  and  health"  he  noted  a 
striking  contrast  in  the  "haggard  corpse"  on  which  "my  mark  was 
unmistakably  found."  He  had  known  the  living  man  as  "fashion- 
ably dressed  and  remarkably  handsome"  and  now  discovered  a 
change  in  "facial  expression."  This  would  hardly  be  surprising, 
for  even  on  the  21st  (according  to  Jones)  every  step  had  been  a 
torture  to  Booth  and  on  the  24th,  before  the  extremity  of  death, 
his  face  was  "pinched  with  suffering."  36  He  had  lain  in  the  open 

84  Poore,  vol.  ii,  p.  60. 

35  Poore,  vol.  i,  p.  26.  Surratt  Trial,  vol.  i,  p.  353. 

36  Century  Magazine,  Jan.  1890;  p.  444. 


THIS  WAS  HE  279 

on  damp  ground  through  a  week  of  cloudy  weather  and  Potomac 
fog;  had  lived  upon  nondescript  food.  His  dark  beard  had  grown 
long  and  the  thick,  wavy  hair  was  by  this  time  dirtied  and  un- 
kempt.37 

The  body  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  treated  with  all  the  preserva- 
tive art  of  that  day;  but  when  a  private  view  was  accorded  Mrs. 
Sara  Lippincott  ("Grace  Greenwood"),  who  had  known  him 
well,  and  she  had  remained  "as  long  as  I  could  bear,"  the  face 
appeared  to  her  "a  dread  simulacrum  of  the  face  of  our  great 
friend— so  unlike  was  it,  though  so  like.  The  color  was  not  the 
pallor  I  remembered,  but  a  sort  of  ashen  gray;  the  mouth  looked 
stern."  38  .  .  .  Photographs  were  made  of  the  dead  Lincoln  but 
the  plates  were  destroyed  because  his  expression  was  thought  to 
be  shrunken  and  unnatural.  With  a  hint  like  this,  mythopceists 
might  declare  it  was  the  body  not  of  Lincoln  but  of  some  one 
else  that  publicly  journeyed  back  toward  Springfield 

through  lanes  and  streets, 
Through  day  and  night  with  the  great  cloud  darkening  the  land  .  .  . 

As  to  John  Booth,  Seaton  Munroe's  first  impression  was  evi- 
dently quite  other  than  Doctor  May's.  To  quote  Munroe:39 

I  was  soon  gazing  at  the  remains,  which  needed  no  long  inspection 
to  enable  me  to  recognize  them.  The  handsome  countenance  was 
unmarred  by  the  agony  of  his  lingering  death,  which  I  was  soon  to 
hear  described.  There  were  missing  the  moustache  and  the  curling 
lock  upon  his  forehead,  which  during  the  flight  had  been  removed 
at  the  house  of  Dr.  Mudd.  There  his  broken  leg  had  been  set,  and  its 
foot  was  now  covered  by  an  old  shoe,  replacing  the  riding  boot  which 
it  was  found  necessary  to  cut  off. 

In  his  paper,  written  more  than  twenty  years  afterwards,  when 
he  was  seventy-five  years  of  age,  May  briefly  mentioned  Booth's 
right  leg  as  "greatly  contused,  and  perfectly  black  from  a  fracture 
of  one  of  the  long  bones."  This  inadvertence  may  have  crept  in 
because,  as  he  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  body,  the  left  leg  would 
have  been  at  May's  own  right.  (There  is  a  similar  confusion 
about  left  and  right  in  the  theater,  the  left  of  the  stage  being  the 

37  New  York  Clipper,  June  10,  1865. 

88  "Abraham  Lincoln:  Tributes  from  His  Associates";  p.  114. 

39 North  American  Review,  Apr.  1896;  p.  431. 


28o  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

right  of  the  auditorium.)  It  may  have  been  due  to  ordinary  lapse 
of  memory.  In  either  case  it  is  of  no  importance.  May  knew  his 
sign-manual  on  Booth's  neck;  he  raised  no  question  whatever  con- 
cerning that,  and  Surgeon-General  Barnes  confirmed  him.  In  his 
testimony  aboard  the  gunboat  on  April  27th,  May  said  em- 
phatically: 

I  recognize  the  likeness.  ...  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  person 
from  whom  I  took  the  tumor,  and  that  it  is  the  body  of  J.  Wilkes 
Booth. 

To  that  he  swore. 

In  Washington  at  that  time,  among  the  personnel  in  the  office 
of  Gen.  B.  W.  Brice,  Acting  Paymaster-General,  was  Clarence 
F.  Cobb,  who  had  been  a  schoolmate  of  John  Booth  and  in  1861 
had  enlisted  in  the  Union  army.  He  had  kept  up  a  friendship 
with  Booth;  and  when  in  Washington  on  furlough,  "saw  Jack 
there  and  he  would  look  at  my  uniform  and  chaff  me,  in  a  play- 
ful way,  for  being  a  Yank,  and  I  would  chaff  him  for  being  a 
Johnny."  On  April  27th,  Cobb  said,  General  Brice  sent  for  him 
(presumably  knowing  of  Cobb's  acquaintance  with  Booth). 

[He]  told  me  in  the  strictest  confidence,  that  he  wished  me  to  report 
to  General  Barnes,  the  Surgeon  General  of  the  army,  and  go  down 
with  him  to  identify  Booth's  body,  which  was  on  a  monitor,  lying  in 
the  Eastern  Branch,  off  the  Navy  Yard.  I  immediately  reported  to  Gen- 
eral Barnes,  who  was  getting  out  of  his  ambulance  in  front  of  his  office, 
on  the  northwest  corner  of  Fifteenth  Street  and  Pennsylvania  Avenue, 
and  when  I  told  him  my  errand,  he  said  it  was  unnecessary;  that  he  and 
nine  others  had  identified  the  body;  that  Dr.  Merrill,  the  dentist,  had 
filled  two  teeth  for  Booth  the  week  before  [the  murder];  that  they  had 
forced  the  mouth  open  and  saw  the  fillings.  So  the  identification  was 
complete.  .  .  .40 

Dentistry  had  only  just  got  launched  on  its  career  as  a  skilled 
profession,  and  Dr.  William  Merrill,  with  an  office  at  344  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  was  among  Washington's  better  practitioners. 
His  work  for  Booth  must  have  been  dene  previous  to  April  1st 
because  the  register  of  the  National  Hotel  showed  that  John  was 
out  of  the  city  from  the  1st  to  the  8th;  but  that  is  a  minor  error. 

40  Dramatic  Mirror,  Feb.  26,  1916;  pp.  3,  5.  (Cobb  was  then  "a  retired  army  officer 
and  ex-newspaper  man"  in  Los  Angeles.) 


THIS  WAS  HE  281 

Conger  and  Lieutenant  Baker  were,  of  course,  able  to  identify 
the  body  as  that  of  the  man  shot  in  Garrett's  tobacco-house.41 
Lieutenant  Baker  had  accompanied  it  from  Garrett's  porch  to  the 
monitor.  Oldroyd,  who  assembled  the  Oldroyd  Collection  and 
was  throughout  his  life  a  repository  of  personal  statements,  ven- 
tured the  assertion  that  practically  all  of  John  Booth's  more 
intimate  actor  friends  in  Washington  visited  the  monitor  and 
identified  the  body  to  their  own  satisfaction.  Men  of  Colonel 
Baker's  force  were  ready  to  escort  persons  who  claimed  to  have 
known  Booth  and  from  whom  it  was  thought  that  something 
might  be  learned.42  This  doubtless  accounts  for  the  presence 
aboard  the  Montauk  of  a  lady  who,  having  identified  the  body, 
clipped  a  lock  of  hair.  (It  was  a  period  when  hair,  treasured  as  a 
memento,  was  braided  into  watch  guards,  fixed  in  brooches,  or 
tied  with  a  ribbon  and  hoarded  among  other  keepsakes  in  bureau 
drawers.)  Returning  at  that  moment  after  a  short  absence,  the 
inflexible  Colonel  Baker  took  from  her  the  relic  she  declined  to 
surrender,  and  then  he  ordered  that  the  deck  be  cleared.43  Stanton 
had  warned  the  Colonel  that  every  hair  of  Booth's  head  would  be 
prized  by  "sympathizers  with  the  South  in  Washington." 

Hundreds  had  flocked  to  the  Navy  Yard  and  were  trying  from 
there  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  body  and  of  the  proceedings  on  the 
ironclad.  At  nine-twenty  that  morning  Stanton  had  telegraphed 
this  bulletin  to  Maj.  Gen.  John  A.  Dix  in  New  York: 

Booth's  body  and  Harrold  [Herold]  are  now  here. 

Next  day's  Intelligencer  said  that  Washington  had  been  "elec- 
trified" by  the  reports  of  capture.  "It  was  hoped  that  he  [Booth] 
had  been  taken  alive,  and  that  offended  justice  would  be  avenged 
by  his  summary  execution."  .  .  .  Workmen  in  the  Yard  found 
it  difficult  to  pursue  their  tasks  because  of  the  crowd,  and  any- 
body supposed  to  be  informed  was  plied  with  questions. 

The  purpose  had,  of  course,  been  to  bring  to  Washington  the 
living  Booth.  On  April  15th  these  orders  had  issued  from  the 
Navy  Department:  44 

41  Poore,  vol.  i,  p.  318. 

"Washington  Evening  Star,  Jan.  5,  1907. 

43  Baker,  "History";  pp.  507-508. 

"Official  Records,  I,  vol.  xlvi,  pt.  3;  p.  768.    (Cf.  Baker,  "History";  p.  528.) 


282  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Commodore  J.  B.  Montgomery,  Navy- Yard,  Washington: 

If  the  military  authorities  arrest  the  murderer  of  the  President  and 
take  him  to  the  yard,  put  him  on  a  monitor,  and  anchor  her  in  the 
stream,  with  strong  guard  on  vessel,  wharf,  and  in  yard.  Call  upon 
commandant  of  Marine  Corps  for  guard.  Have  vessel  immediately  pre- 
pared ready  to  receive  him  at  any  hour,  day  or  night,  with  necessary 
instructions.  He  will  be  heavily  ironed  and  so  guarded  as  to  prevent 
escape  or  injury  to  himself. 

Gideon  Welles, 

Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

Colonel  Zeilin,  Commandant  Marine  Corps: 

Have  extra  strong  and  careful  guard  ready  for  special  service,  if 
called  for  by  Commodore  Montgomery. 

G.  Welles, 

Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

On  the  same  day  Commodore  Montgomery  had  addressed  this 
letter  to  Colonel  Zeilin  at  the  Corps  barracks  on  Eighth  Street: 

Navy  Yard  Washington 
April  15,  1865 
Colonel  J.  Zeilin 

Comdt.  Marine  Corps 

Head  Quarters 
Colonel 

I  am  directed  by  Commodore  J.  B.  Montgomery  Comd*  of  this  yard 
to  state,  in  the  event  of  the  arrival  of  the  murderer  of  President  Lin- 
coln, that  he  will  require  a  strong  guard  of  Marines  from  you  to  carry 
out  the  orders  of  the  Department. 

You  will  please  have  them  ready  day  or  night,  and  inform  me  how 
many  you  can  detail  for  this  service.  The  Marines  will  not  probably 
leave  the  yard. 

I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obdt  sevt. 

J.  B.  Montgomery 

Commandant. 

P.S.  It  may  be  necessary  to  call  for  every  man  who  can  be  spared  from 

the  necessary  posts  of  the  Garrison. 

Very  resp. 

J.  B.  Montgomery 

Commdt-  45 

If  a  living  John  Booth  had  been  brought  to  Washington,  he  would 
have  been  placed  in  irons  in  the  Montauk's  hold,  with  other 

45  From  the  original  in  the  Bland  Collection. 


THIS  WAS  HE  283 

prisoners  of  state  already  there.  When  it  had  seemed  possible  that 
a  mob  might  attack  the  Old  Capitol,  these  prisoners  had  been 
taken  singly  in  closed  vehicles  to  the  Navy  Yard  and  put  aboard 
the  monitor.  In  case  of  attempt  at  escape— which,  considering  the 
irons  and  hoods  each  wore,  seemed  most  unlikely— the  guards  had 
orders  to  shoot. 

Precaution  regarding  Booth  was  well-advised.  When  three  pris- 
oners were  being  marched  to  the  Old  Capitol  on  April  17th,  a 
crowd,  believing  two  of  them  to  be  Surratt  and  Booth,  called, 
"Shoot  them!  Hang  them!"  and  finally  made  a  rush  at  the  guard.46 
Jack  and  Will  Garrett,  under  arrest,  were  landed  in  Washington 
from  the  John  S.  Ide  in  the  early  morning  of  April  27th  and  es- 
corted by  four  detectives  to  the  Arsenal,  where  they  remained 
about  five  days.  When  it  was  learned  where  they  were,  a  mob  made 
a  raid  on  the  Arsenal,  "what  to  do  with  us  I  do  not  know,"  said 
Will  Garrett,  "unless  to  hang  us."  The  guard  was  doubled  and 
artillery  was  posted  before  the  gates  of  the  inclosure.  While  being 
transferred  to  the  Old  Capitol,  the  Garretts,  surrounded  by  troops 
in  hollow  square,  were  hissed  and  followed  with  cries  of  "Rebel! 
Rebel!"  47  It  was  through  motives  not  of  stealth  but  of  prudence 
that  the  authorities  from  the  first  had  planned  to  receive  the  living 
Booth  on  the  monitor,  and  there  they  naturally  received  him  dead. 

In  1867,  before  the  Judiciary  Committee  of  the  House,  Sec- 
retary Stanton  testified  decisively  in  these  words:  48 

Q.  Have  you  any  reason  to  believe  that  Booth  is  not  dead? 

A.  None  whatever.  I  had  a  board  to  inspect  and  examine  his  body 
when  it  was  on  the  iron-clad,  consisting  of  the  Surgeon  General  and 
some  officers  whose  names  I  cannot  now  mention.  Dr.  May,  who  knew 
Booth  personally,  was  also  with  the  board.  They  reported  that  it  was 
the  body  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth. 

Q.  Was  Dr.  May  a  member  of  the  board? 

A.  Dr.  May  was  not  on  the  board,  but  he  was  examined  by  the  board. 
I  believe  that  that  was  the  body  of  Booth,  upon  the  testimony  given  at 
the  time,  as  certainly  as  I  believe  I  am  now  in  existence. 

Though  there  were  rivalry  and  jealousy  as  to  the  reward-money, 

48  Washington  Morning  Chronicle,  Apr.  18;  p.  2. 

47  Confederate  Veteran,  April  1921;  p.  130. 

48  House  Reports,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session,  rept.  7;  p.  408. 


284  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

and  charges  of  foul  play  in  its  distribution,  none  of  the  thirty-four 
persons  who  were  judged  to  have  aided  in  the  capture  of  Booth 
and  Herold  ever  disputed  Booth's  identity. 

So  frequently  and  positively  have  the  myth-builders  denied  that 
the  reward  was  actually  paid  that  a  letter  to  the  present  writer 
from  Joseph  Greenberg,  chief  of  the  division  of  bookkeeping  and 
warrants  of  the  Treasury  Department,  should  here  be  quoted: 

You  are  advised  appropriation  for  payment  of  these  rewards  was 
provided  under  the  Act  of  July  28,  1866  (14  Stat.,  341).  This  Act 
specifically  named  the  persons  to  whom  payments  should  be  made,  the 
general  distribution  of  the  rewards  being  as  follows: 

For  the  capture  of  Payne  [Paine] 

(Distributed  to  10  persons) $     5,000 

For  the  capture  of  Atzerott  [Atzerodt] 

(Distributed  to  9  persons) 25,000 

For  the  capture  of  Booth  and  Herold 

(Distributed  to  34  persons) 75,000 

Total $105,000 

Payment  to  each  person  named  in  the  Act  of  July  28,  1866,  was  made 
by  separate  draft  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States  issued  August  9, 
1866,  in  a  total  amount  of  $104,999.60,  and  according  to  correspond- 
ence on  file  in  this  office  each  of  the  paid  drafts,  aggregating  the  total 
sum  disbursed,  was  returned  in  due  course  to  the  Treasury  as  paid. 
The  sum  of  $0.40,  remaining  on  the  books  of  the  Treasury  on  account 
of  fractions  of  a  cent  which  were  not  disbursed,  was  carried  to  the 
surplus  fund  of  the  Treasury  on  June  30,  1868. 

Likenesses  of  John  Booth  were  plentiful.  With  those  of  other 
well-known  players,  they  could  be  had  at  shops  and  photograph 
galleries;  and  it  had  been  a  custom  on  special  occasions,  such  as 
benefit  nights,  to  give  souvenir  carte-de-visite  portraits  of  stage 
folk  to  the  ladies  of  the  audience  or  to  all  purchasers  of  reserved 
seats.  Booth,  said  Washington's  Morning  Chronicle**  had  "ex- 
hibited his  somewhat  striking  visage  on  every  stage  in  America, 
and  has  had  himself  daguerreotyped  and  photographed  oftener 
than  he  has  said  his  prayers."  There  were  also  poster  portraits  in 
color,  an  example  of  which  is  preserved  in  an  extra-illustrated 
volume   (formerly  belonging  to  Laurence  Hutton)  in  the  Prince- 

*»Apr.  18;  p.  2. 


THIS  WAS  HE  285 

ton  University  Library.  On  April  14th— as  soon  as  possible  after 
his  arrival  from  New  York— Colonel  Baker  obtained  photographs 
of  Booth,  Davy  Herold,  and  John  H.  Surratt,  had  copies  made,  and 
mailed  these  broadcast,  with  descriptions  and  his  own  offer  of 
$10,000  reward,  to  detectives  throughout  the  North,  as  well  as  to 
various  local  authorities.  As  to  Booth,  the  Morning  Chronicle 
said,  "Probably  most  policemen  in  this  country  have  seen  him,  and 
every  one  in  the  two  hemispheres  will  be  furnished  with  an  ac- 
curate likeness."  .  .  .  The  Commercial  Advertiser  (New  York) 
said  50  portraits  of  Booth  were  sent  "in  every  direction"  in  order  to 
"lead  to  his  arrest." 

Photographs  of  Booth  such  as  Lieutenant  Baker  had  at  Gar- 
rett's, or  such  as  Sergeant  Hartley  and  Sergeant  Peddicord  used  on 
the  monitor,  were  available  for  comparison.  The  large  reward- 
poster  issued  by  the  War  Department  under  date  of  April  20th 
carried  at  its  head,  attached  within  rule  borders,  three  copies  of 
photographs— Surratt  at  the  left,  Herold  at  the  right,  and  John 
Booth  in  the  center  in  familiar  and  characteristic  pose.  This 
poster,  though  now  rare,  was  then  widely  distributed.  At  Port  Con- 
way, William  Rollins  recognized  the  portraits  of  Booth  and 
Herold  shown  him  by  Lieutenant  Baker;  and  when  Booth  lay  on 
Garrett's  porch  "the  comparison  with  the  picture,"  said  the  Rev. 
Dr.  R.  B.  Garrett,  "was  perfect."  The  same  Booth  lay  on  a  car- 
penter's rough  bench  under  the  Montauk's  awning.  There,  by 
the  report  of  an  Associated  Press  dispatch  (appearing  in  the  New 
York  Times  of  April  29th),  "a  photographic  view  of  the  body 
was  taken." 

By  the  time  the  Conspiracy  Trial  got  under  way,  on  May  12th, 
1865,  enterprising  dealers  had  been  doing  a  thriving  business  in 
pictures  of  "the  Assassin"— small  engravings  or  copies  of  photo- 
graphs.51 A  Montreal  correspondent  wrote  to  the  New  York  Clip- 
per*2 that  in  October  1864  he  had  spent  an  evening  at  billiards 
with  John  Booth  at  St.  Lawrence  Hall;  and  said  he:  "The  photo- 
graphs commonly  circulated  at  present  are  evidently  correct,  as 
they  serve  to  replace  his  appearance  on  that  evening  very  vividly 

60  Apr.  24;  p.  1. 

51  In  Harper's  Weekly  for  May  6    (p.  286)  an  advertisement  offered  photographs 
at  twenty-five  cents  each,  $1.75  a  dozen.  News-vendors  had  portraits  for  sale. 
"Issue  of  May  20,  1865. 


286  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

in  my  mind."  53  The  records  of  the  trial  show,  through  the  testi- 
mony of  Sergt.  Silas  T.  Cobb,  Lieut.  J.  W.  Dempsey,  John  Green- 
await,  A.  R.  Reeves,  Edward  C.  Stewart,  and  others  to  whom 
photographs  of  Booth  were  exhibited,  that  the  photographs  were 
authentic.  There  is  no  support  whatever  for  the  preposterous 
statement  that  a  photograph  of  Edwin  Booth  was  used  through- 
out the  trial  as  that  of  John,  in  order  (as  has  been  charged)  to 
bolster  the  prosecution's  case.  Whatever  its  faults— and  they  were 
many— the  prosecution  would  not  have  been  stupid  enough  to 
undertake  such  a  thing,  nor  would  defense  counsel— including 
such  men  as  Reverdy  Johnson,  Gen.  Thomas  Ewing,  and  Maj. 
William  E.  Doster— have  been  stupid  enough  to  be  deceived.  In 
his  argument  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  General  Ewing, 
describing  Booth's  arrival  at  Mudd's  on  April  15th,  said:  "Booth 
got  there,  with  Herold,  about  daybreak  (Frank  Washington). 
He  usually  wore  a  mustache  (see  photograph)."  .  .  ,54 

In  the  archives  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General  the  present 
writer  has  seen  a  photograph  of  smooth-faced  Edwin  Booth.  It 
was  enclosed,  with  an  unintelligible  penciled  memorandum,  in  an 
envelope  marked  "C.  Dawson"  and  bearing  the  corner  card  of  the 
United  States  District  Attorney,  District  of  Columbia.  This  en- 
velope was  in  turn  enclosed  in  a  larger  one  inscribed  with  pen- 
printing:  Booth's  Photograph  Ex.  No.  1.  The  photograph  of  John 
Booth  was  missing.  It  was  only  one  of  numerous  things  missing 
from  the  records  of  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  Other  things  had  been 
misplaced.  No  appropriation  had  been  made  for  special  care  of 
this  material,  and  in  the  course  of  years  it,  like  some  other  rec- 
ords at  Washington,  had  suffered  vicissitudes.  But  there  were  sup- 
posable  reasons  why  it  included  a  photograph  of  Edwin  Booth. 
Lieut.  A.  M.  S.  Crawford,  who  sat  in  the  dress  circle  with  Captain 
McGowan  on  the  night  of  April  14th,  said  that  the  dark  man 
"very  strongly  resembled  the  Booths"  55— not  specifying  more 
closely.  Even  on  Sunday,  April  16th,  it  was  reported  in  Washing- 

B3  On  May  2  the  sale  of  portraits  "of  any  rebel  officer  or  soldier,  or  of  J.  Wilkes 
Booth"  was  forbidden  in  the  Middle  Department  by  order  95  from  Gen.  Lew  Wal- 
lace's headquarters  at  Baltimore    (National  Republican,  May  3;  p.  2). 

64  Mudd,  "The  Life  of  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd";  p.  88. 

55  Original  statement  as  written  out  by  James  Tanner  (Union  League  Club,  Phila- 
delphia). 


THIS  WAS  HE  287 

ton  that  Edwin  killed  the  President,  and  John  T.  Ford  heard  this 
in  Richmond  on  Sunday  night.56  It  is  likely  that  photographs  of  all 
the  brothers  were  obtained  by  the  detectives.57 

Another  possible  reason  could  have  been  that  John  without  his 
mustache  bore  a  noticeable  semblance  to  Edwin— and  it  was 
known  that  John's  mustache  had  been  removed  while  he  was 
at  Mudd's.  Hence  it  might  have  been  thought  that  Edwin's  por- 
trait would  aid  in  establishing  John's  identity;  and  of  course  this 
portrait  may  not  originally  have  been  in  the  envelope  marked 
"Booth's  Photograph." 

It  is  to  be  added  that  Edwin  was  subpoenaed  as  a  witness  for 
the  defense  at  the  Conspiracy  Trial— "to  show  the  influence  his 
brother  exerted  over  weaker  minds,"  wrote  W.  E.  Doster,  coun- 
sel for  Atzerodt  and  Paine.  "He  came,"  Doster  proceeded,  "but 
said  he  knew  less  of  his  brother,  probably,  than  any  one— that  he 
had  had  nothing  to  do  with  him  for  years."  58  Hence  he  was  not 
put  on  the  stand;  but  he  might  have  been— in  which  event  the  use 
of  his  photograph  as  John's  would  more  than  ever  have  been  a 
ticklish  business.  Under  the  stress  that  followed  upon  the  heels 
of  Lincoln's  murder,  the  authorities  no  doubt  often  did  things  it 
now  is  easy  to  criticize;  but  there  really  is  no  evidence  of  subter- 
fuge or  concealment  at  any  time  regarding  John  Booth's  identity. 

The  New  York  Evening  Post  of  Thursday,  April  27th,  said  edi- 
torially: "The  body  of  our  murdered  President  is  not  yet  laid  in 
the  grave,  when  his  assassin  meets  his  doom,  at  the  hands  of  an 
officer  of  justice."  That  same  afternoon  (the  autopsy  having  been 
completed  and  the  body  fully  identified)  the  body  again  was  sewed 
up  in  its  blanket— and  then  something  unexpected  happened.  The 
blanket-wrapped  figure  must  be  disposed  of,  and  Stanton,  with  his 
usual  decisiveness,  had  instructed  Colonel  Baker  what  to  do  with 
it.  It  was  lifted  from  the  ironclad's  deck  into  a  small  boat  rowed 
by  two  seamen  of  the  crew,  and  only  the  Bakers  accompanied  it. 
Watchers  at  the  edge  of  the  Yard  saw  the  boat  move  in  an  indirect 

6eEwing's  argument  in  the  case  of  Mudd;  Ford's  testimony. 

"Intelligencer,  Apr.  28;  p.  2. — A  file  of  material  regarding  the  Booths  was  as- 
sembled by  the  War  Department. 

58  "Lincoln  and  Episodes  of  the  Civil  War";  p.  275.  Mrs.  T.  B.  Aldrich,  "Crowding 
Memories";  pp.  82-83. 


288  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

course  down  the  Eastern  Branch  past  Buzzard  Point,  past  Green- 
leafs  Point,  and  vanish. 

Washington's  Constitutional  Union  next  day  had  this  to  say  edi- 
torially: 

Booth's  identity  and  the  cause  of  his  death  having  been  established, 
we  suppose  that  nothing  was  left  for  the  Government  but  to  put  his 
carcase  out  of  sight,  and  we  presume  the  place  of  his  interment  will  not 
be  made  known. 

The  presumption  is  that  the  body  will  be  sunk  in  the  sea,  so  that  no 
one  can  tell  where  he  is  buried. 

The  New  York  Times  of  May  ist  hoped 

the  report  is  true  that  the  government  has  disposed  of  the  body  of  the 
assassin  Booth  in  such  a  way  that  its  resting-place  will  never  be  known. 
.  .  .  The  grave  of  the  assassin  of  the  President,  if  known,  would  be 
visited  by  thousands  from  curiosity,  and  would  become  a  celebrated 
resort  of  sightseers,  whose  detestation  of  the  deed  would  be  overborne 
or  modified  by  that  strange  wonder  which  always  surrounds  acts  of 
desperate  hardihood.  We  trust  the  secret  of  Booth's  sepulchre  will 
never  be  revealed. 

The  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer  thought,  however,59  that  "the  Govern- 
ment owed  a  duty  to  itself  and  to  the  country"  and  that  it  was 
"incumbent  upon  the  authorities  so  to  deal  with  the  criminal  as 
to  render  his  fate  impressive."  Regretting  the  lack  of  "solemn  and 
becoming"  procedure,  the  Plain  Dealer  continued: 

To  make  war  on  the  wretched  relics  of  humanity  from  which  life  has 
fled,  and  which  have  become  a  mere  piece  of  unconscious  carrion-clay, 
is  a  violation  of  sense  and  decency.  The  body  of  Booth  should  have 
been  deposited,  like  that  of  any  other  malefactor,  in  some  Potter's 
Field,  instead  of  being  invested  with  a  mysterious  secrecy,  resembling 
more  an  incident  in  some  flash  novel  than  the  act  of  a  great  nation  in 
dealing  with  a  public  criminal. 

On  May  ist  the  Constitutional  Union  emphasized  the  "mystery" 
by  declaring: 

The  resting  place  of  the  body  is  unknown  to  the  world  with  the 
exception  of  U.  S.  Detective  Baker  and  another  man.  They  took  the 
body  away  in  a  small  boat.  They  are  sworn  to  secrecy. 

60  Apr.  28,  quoted  in  the  Sunday  Mercury   (New  York)  of  Apr.  30. 


THIS  WAS  HE  289 

George  A.  Townsend,  young  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
World,  cut  loose  in  this  romantic  fashion:  60 

"What  have  you  done  with  the  body?"  said  I  to  [Colonel]  Baker. 

"That  is  known,"  he  answered,  "to  only  one  man  living  beside  my- 
self. It  is  gone;  I  will  not  tell  where;  the  only  man  who  knows  is  sworn 
to  silence;  never  till  the  great  trumpeter  comes  shall  the  grave  of 
Booth  be  discovered."  And  this  is  true.  ...  A  small  rowboat  received 
the  carcass  of  the  murderer;  two  men  were  in  it;  they  carried  the  body 
off  into  the  darkness.  .  .  .  The  river  bottom  may  ooze  about  it,  laden 
with  great  shot  and  drowning  manacles.  The  earth  may  have  opened 
to  give  it  that  silence  and  forgiveness  which  man  will  never  give  to  its 
memory.  The  fishes  may  swim  around  it,  or  the  daisies  grow  white 
above  it,  but  we  shall  never  know. 

This  and  similar,  if  less  gaudy,  journalistic  writing  must  have  had 
a  considerable  influence  in  preparing  the  soil  wherein  the  Great 
American  Myth  was  to  flourish.  Already  war  had  largely  increased 
the  distribution  and  influence  of  Northern  papers;  and  the  events 
attending  and  following  Lincoln's  death  had  further  swelled  the 
number  of  readers.  Colonel  Baker,  to  "gratify,  as  far  as  possible  to 
do  so,  the  mournful  curiosity  of  the  people,"  directed  "some  cor- 
respondence" (he  says)  from  his  headquarters— and  Townsend, 
from  whom  the  Colonel  quotes  freely,  was,  as  Townsend  himself 
admits,  thus  censored  by  Baker. 

Colonel  Baker's  general  principle  in  such  matters  has  been 
frankly  stated  in  his  book:  61 

It  may  be  said,  that  the  deception  and  misstatements  resorted  to,  and 
inseparable  from  the  detective  service,  are  demoralizing,  and  prove 
unsoundness  of  character  in  its  officers.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that,  in  war,  no  commander  fails  to  deceive  the  enemy  when  possible, 
to  secure  the  least  advantage.  .  .  .  The  work  of  the  detective  is  simply 
deception  reduced  to  a  science  or  profession;  and  whatever  objection, 
on  ethical  grounds,  may  lie  against  the  secret  service,  lies  with  equal 
force  against  the  strategy  and  tactics  of  Washington,  Scott,  Grant,  and 
the  host  of  their  illustrious  associates  in  the  wars  of  the  world.  .  .  . 

In  1867,  when  sworn  before  the  House  Judiciary  Committee, 
Colonel  Baker  gave  this  testimony: 

60  "The  Life,  Crime,  and  Capture  of  John  Wilkes  Booth";  pp.  38-39.  (This  paper- 
covered  reprint  of  eight  of  Townsend's  newspaper  letters  had  a  large  popular  sale.) 

61  Introductory  Chapter   (p.  44). 


sgo  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Q.  Did  you  ever  represent  to  anybody  that  you  or  some  of  your 
assistants  took  the  body  of  Booth  out  into  the  ocean,  tied  stones  to  it, 
and  sunk  it? 

A.  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  did  directly.  I  have  been  questioned  a 
great  deal  in  reference  to  that  matter,  and  used  to  reply  to  the  reporters 
somewhat  at  random.  Very  likely  I  did  make  such  a  statement.  I  do  not 
recollect. 

Q.  Why  do  you  say  very  likely  you  did? 

A.  I  say  that  because,  at  the  time  the  body  was  disposed  of,  I  was  be- 
set by  correspondents  and  others  who  wanted  to  ascertain  where  it  was 
buried.  The  Secretary  did  not  want  anybody  to  know. 

Q.  Is  it  a  fact  that  the  body  was  taken  out  into  the  ocean  and  sunk? 

A.  No,  sir.*   *   * 

Q.  Did  you  ever  represent  that  you  alone,  with  one  other  man,  dis- 
posed of  the  body  and  that  no  other  persons  on  earth  knew  where  it 
was? 

A.  My  previous  answer  applies  to  this  question. 

Q.  You  will  answer  this  question  if  you  please. 

A.  I  might  have  made  that  representation. 

Q.  Is  it  true? 

A.  No,  sir,  it  is  not  true.  I  have  stated  my  reasons  for  making  it.62 

On  May  20th,  1865,  the  widely  read  Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated 
Newspaper  carried  a  front-page  engraving  of  the  dime  novel 
school:  THE  ASSASSIN'S  END-FINAL  DISPOSITION  OF 
THE  BODY  OF  JOHN  WILKES  BOOTH-AN  AUTHENTIC 
SKETCH.  Above  this,  in  large  type,  was  the  following  note: 

The  sketch  below  was  furnished  by  one  of  the  two  officers  employed 
in  the  duty  of  sinking  the  body  of  Booth  in  the  middle  of  the  Potomac. 
Although  not  authorized  to  divulge  his  name,  I  am  able  to  vouch  for 
the  truth  of  the  representation. 

F.  LESLIE. 
New  York,  May  10th,  1865. 

The  picture  shows  two  bearded  gentlemen  in  army  uniform 
(one  of  whom  may  perhaps  be  intended  for  Colonel  Baker)  en- 
gaged at  dead  of  night  in  sliding  over  the  gunwale  of  a  dinghy 
what  evidently  is  a  sheeted  figure  lashed  to  a  plank.  Drawn  by  a 
staff  artist,  the  scene,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  was  purely 
imaginative.    Probably    the    details    were    supplied    by    Colonel 

62  The  Colonel  was  nettled  (not  without  reason)  at  certain  questions,  and  his  testi- 
mony assumed  the  nature  of  a  verbal  duel  with  his  examiner. 


THIS  WAS  HE  291 

Baker's  office;  at  all  events,  if  the  Colonel  wasn't  romancing,  Mr. 
Leslie   (ne  Henry  Carter)  was. 

Questioned  before  the  House  Judiciary  Committee  on  May 
18th,  1867,  Secretary  Stanton  thus  explained  his  procedure  regard- 
ing the  body: 

Q.  What  was  the  occasion  of  mystery  about  his  burial? 
A.  I  do  not  know  that  there  was  any  mystery  about  it  other  than  this: 
I  thought  the  body  should  be  interred,  so  that  if  there  was  any  dis- 
position to  do  so,  the  body  might  not  be  made  the  subject  of  glorifica- 
tion by  disloyal  persons  and  those  sympathizing  with  the  rebellion. 
I  thought  it  would  be  a  source  of  irritation  to  the  loyal  people  of  the 
country  if  his  body  was  permitted  to  be  made  the  instrument  of  rejoic- 
ing at  the  sacrifice  of  Mr.  Lincoln;  and  that  it  would  help  to  keep  up 
the  feeling  of  excitement  and  animosity  on  the  part  of  those  who  sym- 
pathized, if  they  did  not  participate,  with  him  in  the  act  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's murder. 

Q.  There  was  nothing  about  the  identity  of  Booth  that  entered  into 
your  consideration  of  making  the  burial  a  secret? 

A.  Nothing  whatever.  It  was  done  simply  and  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
preventing  him  from  being  made  the  subject  of  rebel  rejoicing.*  *  * 
Q.  Was  there  any  purpose  in  so  burying  the  body  of  Booth  that  no 
history  could  ever  give  an  account  of  the  spot  where  he  was  buried? 
A.  None  whatever.  The  only  object  was  to  place  his  body  where  it 
could  not  be  made  an  improper  use  of  until  the  excitement  had  passed 
away,  and  then,  I  supposed,  at  the  proper  time,  it  would  be  given  to  his 
friends. 

Stanton's  enemies— and  they  were  many— were  quick  to  fasten 
upon  this  incident  as  one  more  excuse  for  repeated  bitter  com- 
plaints against  him.  As  late  as  1869  the  New  York  World  declared 
that  Booth  had  been  interred  "with  a  secrecy  which  smacked  of 
the  Inquisition"  and  charged  that  "But  for  Edwin  M.  Stanton  the 
glamour  of  a  factitious  mystery  would  never  have  been  thrown 
around  the  burial  of  the  poor  lifeless  remains."  .  .  .  Waxing  vio- 
lent, it  denounced  the  "malignant  imbecility"  of  "this  Pennsyl- 
vania lawyer,  turned  high  priest  of  Moloch,"  who  performed 
"mummeries"  over  a  dead  body.63 

There  were  no  mummeries,  and  the  admittedly  factitious  mys- 
tery—to which  journalistic  paragraphers  gave  substantial  aid— was 

63  Feb.  16;  p.  1.  Feb.  18;  p.  4. 


292  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

bound  to  develop;  for  something  wrapped  in  an  army  blanket 
had  emerged  from  the  vast  gloom  of  the  river  and  shortly  disap- 
peared. The  findings  of  the  autopsy  were  disclosed  in  the  curtest 
manner.  Apparently  feeling  that  Booth's  deed  had  virtually 
thrown  Washington  back  into  a  state  of  war,  Colonel  Baker  exe- 
cuted his  superior's  orders  and  justified  his  hoaxing  of  trouble- 
some reporters.  After  all,  rumors  were  prevalent— in  the  Navy 
Yard  and  elsewhere  it  was  alleged  that  a  war  vessel  would  "take 
the  body  to  sea  and  consign  it  to  oblivion."  64  At  the  same  time  it 
was  being  hinted  that  the  capture  of  Booth  alive  ought  to  have 
been  thoroughly  possible;  and  the  story  was  passed  around  that 
a  man  in  woman's  clothes  and  using  crutches  had  been  seen  enter- 
ing a  house  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  between  Eleventh  and 
Twelfth  Streets,  and  that  the  entire  block  had  thereupon  been 
searched— in  vain!  65  It  was  even  whispered  that  Colonel  Baker 
and  his  associates  were  in  a  conspiracy  to  defraud,  seeking  to  ob- 
tain reward-money  for  a  corpse  not  Booth's.  Myth  was  forming. 

Down  in  southernmost  Washington,  where  the  Eastern  Branch 
joined  the  Potomac,  was  a  thumblike  bulge  of  land  called  Green- 
leaf's  Point.  An  earthwork  was  built  here  before  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  by  1803  there  was  a  small  military  post, 
which,  with  the  addition  of  workshops,  became  in  1817  the  Wash- 
ington Arsenal.  A  Federal  penitentiary  of  160  cells  was  subse- 
quently located  at  the  northern  end  of  the  reservation,  and  the 
discipline  of  prisoners  was  carried  on  side  by  side  with  the  manu- 
facture of  arms  and  ammunition.  The  Civil  War  made  the  arsenal 
an  exceedingly  busy  place.  Huge  quantities  of  ordnance  and  small 
arms  were  stored  there,  and  ammunition  of  all  kinds  was  prepared. 
In  1862  the  penitentiary  building  and  grounds  were  transferred  to 
the  War  Department's  jurisdiction,  the  civil  prisoners  were  re- 
moved to  the  penitentiary  at  Albany,  New  York,  and  the  gloomy- 
looking  brick  structure  was  appropriated  to  military  uses.66 

It  was  to  the  former  penitentiary  building  on  the  grounds  of 
the  Washington  Arsenal  that  the  body  of  John  Booth  was  taken. 

64  James  Croggon  in  the  Evening  Star   (Washington),  Jan.  5,  1907. 

65  New  York  World,  Apr.  27;  p.  4. 

66  W.  J.  O'Brien  in  Army  Ordnance,  July-Aug.  1935;  pp.  32-35. 


THIS  WAS  HE  293 

This  was  in  accordance  with  the  directions  of  Secretary  Stanton, 
as  the  Secretary  himself  testified  before  the  Judiciary  Committee 
of  the  House  in  1867. 

Q.  What  was  done  with  the  body  of  Booth? 

A.  I  did  not  see  him  interred.  I  gave  directions  that  he  should  be 

interred  on  the  premises  of  the  Ordnance  Department;  and  the  officer 

to  whom  I  gave  directions  reported  that  he  was  so  interred. 

Q.  Did  you  give  directions  as  to  the  particular  manner  in  which  he 

should  be  interred? 

A.  I  gave  directions  that  he  should  be  interred  in  that  place,  and  that 

the  place  should  be  kept  under  lock  and  key. 

Watching  from  the  Montauk's  deck,  Seaton  Munroe  followed  the 
rowboat  in  its  course  down  the  Branch,  saw  it  turn  the  point  in 
the  direction  of  the  arsenal  and  disappear. 

The  boat  drew  up  to  a  wharf  on  the  Potomac  side  of  the  arsenal 
grounds  and  there  the  body  was  lifted  out  and  placed  in  a  summer 
house  or  arbor  overlooking  the  water.  Lieutenant  Baker  took 
charge  while  Colonel  Baker  went  to  find  Col.  J.  G.  Benton,  the 
officer  then  in  command  of  the  arsenal  post.  Both  Colonel  Baker 
and  Lieutenant  Baker  testified  to  having  seen  the  body  carried 
within  the  walls  surrounding  the  penitentiary  building.67  Indis- 
criminate references  to  both  "arsenal"  and  "penitentiary"  have 
naturally  led  to  some  confusion,  but  the  matter  is  made  sufficiently 
clear  in  the  following  excerpt  from  Colonel  Baker's  testimony: 

I  call  it  the  arsenal  building,  because  it  was  used  for  arsenal  stores. 
It  was  properly  the  old  penitentiary,  though  it  had  not  been  used  for  a 
penitentiary  for  some  time. 

Four-and-a-half  Street  ran  directly  from  the  City  Hall  to  the  peni- 
tentiary's gate. 

With  the  aid  of  a  plan  of  the  building,  Stanton  had  given  in- 
structions as  to  where  the  body  should  be  put.  The  offices  of  the 
penitentiary  had  been  at  its  western  end— the  end  toward  the 
Potomac— and  next  to  them  was  a  large,  brick-floored  room,  origi- 
nally intended  for  the  dining  hall.  After  the  War  Department  took 
over  the  premises,  this  room  had  been  used  as  a  depository  for 

87  Before  the  Judiciary  Committee  of  the  House,  Fortieth  Congress,  1st  session 
(1867). 


294  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

fixed  ammunition  or  other  arsenal  stores.  In  it— reputedly  in  its 
southern  half— John  Booth's  first  grave  was  dug.  Enlisted  men  of 
the  Ordnance  Corps  did  the  work  under  Benton's  supervision. 

Still  in  its  wrapping,  the  body  was  enclosed  in  a  musket  case  and 
laid  without  ceremony  in  the  earth.  Colonel  Baker  was  at  the  peni- 
tentiary during  the  evening  and  Major  Eckert,  as  Stanton's  per- 
sonal representative,  was  there  too,  though  neither  was  actually 
present  at  the  burial.  Two  witnesses  were  E.  N.  Stebbins,  store- 
keeper of  the  arsenal,  and  Assistant  Surgeon  G.  L.  Porter,  on  duty 
at  that  post.  (Young  Porter  was  later  on  the  staff  of  Gen.  J.  F. 
Hartranft,  who  had  charge  of  the  execution  of  the  doomed  four 
on  a  hot  July  day  in  the  penitentiary  yard.)  Like  Sir  John  Moore 
at  Corunna,  Booth  was  inhumed  "at  dead  of  night"  by  a  "lantern 
dimly  burning."  The  grave  was  filled  up,  the  bricks  were  replaced, 
the  heavy  gate  was  locked,  and  Stebbins  took  the  key.  When  Col- 
onel Baker  reported  to  Stanton  that  night,  Stanton  (Baker  said), 
wished  to  know  where  the  key  was  and  Baker  accordingly  drove 
back  for  it  and  handed  it  over  to  the  Secretary.68 

Examined  before  the  House  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  (May 
30th,  1867),  Major  Eckert  testified:  69 

Q.  Did  you  see  the  grave? 

A.  I  did. 

Q.  In  what  room  was  the  burial  to  take  place? 

A.  In  a  large  room  in  the  arsenal  building. 

Q.  Please  describe  that  room. 

A.  The  only  description  I  can  give  of  it  is,  that  it  is  the  largest  room 

in  the  building  .  .  .  perhaps  thirty  feet  square,  and  possibly  more. 

I  never  was  in  it  but  twice.  It  is  in  the  old  penitentiary  building.70 

Stanton's  testimony  before  the  same  committee  was: 

Q.  Who  were  the  officers  that  buried  him? 

A.  The  officer  in  charge,  to  whom  I  gave  my  directions,  was  Colonel 

Benton,  of  the  Ordnance  Bureau. 

Q.  Did  he  report  to  you? 

68  New  York  Herald,  May  12,  1865.  New  York  Times,  Oct.  4,  1867;  Feb.  9,  1869; 
Feb.  21,  1901.  Magazine  of  History,  Apr.  1921.  Porter,  "The  Tragedy  of  the  Nation" 
(typescript  in  the  Library  of  Congress).  Baker's  testimony  before  the  House  Com- 
mittee on  the  Judiciary.  James  Croggon  in  the  Washington  Star,  Jan.  5,  1907. 

69  House  Report;  p.  679. 

70  Porter  said  "about  50  x  40." 


THIS  WAS  HE  295 

A.  He  reported  that  he  had  buried  him. 

Q.  Do  you  know  who  else  besides  Colonel  Benton  were  employed? 

A.  He  employed  some  persons  in  his  department.    I  was  not  present 

and  do  not  know  who  was  present.   He  reported  that  he  had  acted  in 

accordance  with  my  orders. 

Q.  Was  there  anything  buried  with  the  body  of  Booth? 

A.  Nothing  whatever,  so  far  as  I  have  any  knowledge.  Colonel  Benton 

can  tell. 

John  Booth  was  locked  in  seclusion.  On  May  4th  the  body  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  after  "processions  long  and  winding  and  the 
flambeaus  of  the  night,"  was  placed  in  a  temporary  vault  in  Oak 
Ridge  Cemetery  at  Springfield.  On  John's  birthday,  May  10th, 
pursuant  to  executive  order,  a  Military  Commission  of  nine  of- 
ficers assembled  in  a  courtroom  specially  fitted  up  for  it  in  the 
northeast  corner  of  the  penitentiary's  third  story,  and  there  it  sev- 
erally arraigned  eight  persons  known  as  "the  conspirators."  The 
Commission  on  June  30th  pronounced  sentence  upon  the  accused. 
Mrs.  Mary  Surratt,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  David  E.  Herold,  and 
Lewis  Paine  were  to  be  hanged  by  the  neck  until  they  were  dead. 
Samuel  Arnold,  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  and  Michael  O'Laughlin 
were  to  be  imprisoned  at  hard  labor  for  life;  Edman  Spangler  was 
to  be  imprisoned  at  hard  labor  for  six  years. 

On  July  7th,  under  a  flaming  sun,  the  four  condemned  to  death 
were  executed  together  on  a  scaffold  in  the  penitentiary  yard  and 
buried  in  a  row  at  its  foot.  Spangler,  O'Laughlin,  Arnold,  and 
Mudd  were  later  sent  to  Fort  Jefferson  on  what  was  ironically 
named  Golden  Key,  one  of  ten  coral  islets  known  as  the  Dry  Tor- 
tugas,  sixty-three  miles  west  of  Key  West— a  domain  of  sand 
burrs,  prickly  pear,  and  sharks.  Meanwhile,  for  the  greater  part  of 
two  days,  May  23rd  and  24th,  a  vast  column  of  sunburnt  Union 
troops,  their  standards  draped  with  flowers,  marched  along  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  in  grand  review. 

John  H.  Surratt,  after  remaining  in  hiding  in  Canada,  went  to 
England  and  thence  to  Rome,  where,  under  the  name  John 
Watson,  he  enlisted  in  the  Pontifical  Zouaves.  The  Ford  brothers 
were  released  from  prison,  and  through  the  press,  under  date  of 
May  27th,  John  T.  Ford  expressed  his  gratitude71  to  "very  many 

71  Clipper,  June  10,  1865. 


296  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

kind  and  earnest  friends  for  their  unwavering  confidence  and  gen- 
erous tenders  of  service."  It  was  said  that  he  was  bargaining  with 
a  Congregational  society  for  the  sale  of  his  Washington  theater, 
and  that  if  the  building  were  purchased  for  use  as  a  church  "few 
changes  will  be  made  in  the  interior  arrangements,  and  the  boxes 
will  remain  as  they  were  on  the  evening  of  the  great  tragedy."  72 
Subsequently  it  was  reported  that  the  Young  Men's  Christian  As- 
sociation had  "obtained  a  formal  refusal  of  the  property"  until 
July  ist  but  had  met  with  small  response  to  a  public  appeal  for 
funds.73 

Ford's  price  was  $100,000;  and  according  to  hearsay,  he  would 
reopen  the  theater  on  September  1st  rather  than  sell  for  less.  By 
July  6th  he  was  announcing  that  "the  theater  soon  will  be  open  to 
the  public,"  though  with  the  assurance  that  "The  private  box  oc- 
cupied by  our  late  lamented  President  will  remain  closed."  A  per- 
formance of  "The  Octoroon"  was  advertised  for  the  evening  of 
Monday,  July  10th,  but  about  seven  o'clock  Gen.  G.  W.  Giles, 
commanding  the  provisional  brigade  of  the  Veteran  Reserve 
Corps,  called  upon  Proprietor  Ford  with  an  order  from  General 
Augur  (commanding  the  Department  of  Washington)  directing 
that  the  theater  be  immediately  shut.74  Notices  reading  CLOSED 
BY  ORDER  OF  THE  WAR  DEPARTMENT  were  posted  upon 
the  building  and  patrons  were  turned  away;  the  box-office  having, 
it  was  said,  no  opportunity  to  return  their  money  to  those  who  had 
bought  tickets  in  advance. 

Ford's  counsel,  H.  Winter  Davis  and  William  Schley,  writing 
from  Baltimore  on  July  18th,  informed  Secretary  Stanton  that  they 
believed  Mr.  Ford  clearly  to  be  entitled  to  use  the  theater  for 
theatrical  purposes,  as  his  business  was  a  lawful  one  which  he  had 
been  duly  licensed  to  pursue.  They  suggested  that  if  the  property 
were  not  returned,  they  would  be  compelled  to  advise  their  client 
as  to  the  suitable  remedy.  On  the  following  day  the  Secretary  re- 
plied that  he  had  seized  and  now  held  the  property  by  order  of 
President  Johnson;  that  the  President's  instructions  were  to  re- 
tain it  for  the  use  of  the  Government;  that  Mr.  Ford's  right  to  in- 

"  New  York  Times,  June  18,  1865. 
"/&.,  July  3,  1865. 

74  Commercial  Advertiser  (New  York),  July  11,  1865;  also  Baltimore  American  and 
Philadelphia  Inquirer  of  same  date. 


THIS  WAS  HE  297 

demnity  was  not  disputed;  and  that  there  was  "no  objection  to 
any  advice  you  may  be  disposed  to  give  him."  75 

From  the  first  there  had  been  strong  general  objection  to  Ford's 
scheme  to  resume  performances.  The  New  York  Times16  had  edi- 
torially styled  it  "an  outrage  upon  propriety."  Threats  of  violent 
interference  were  heard  in  Washington.  Ford  had  received  this 
warning: 

Washington,  D.  C. 
July  9th  1865 

Mr.  J.  T.  Ford: 

Sir:  You  must  not  think  of  opening  to  morrow  night — I  can  assure 
you  that  it  will  not  be  tolerated.  You  must  dispose  of  the  property  in 
some  other  way — Take  even  fifty  thousand  for  it,  and  build  another 
and  you  will  be  generously  supported — But  do  not  attempt  to  open  it 
again. 

One  of  many  determined  to 
prevent  it.77 

The  Albany  Evening  Journal  of  July  13th  expressed  a  common 
opinion  in  saying  in  an  editorial  article  that  Stanton  deserved  the 
public's  thanks.  But  Lincoln's  former  Attorney-General  and  Stan- 
ton's associate  in  the  Cabinet,  Edward  Bates,  at  that  time  in  retire- 
ment in  Missouri,  made  this  sardonic  entry  in  his  diary:  78 

I  see  by  the  papers,  that  the  Sec  of  War  has,  by  his  simple  fiat,  pre- 
vented the  opening  of  Fords  Theatre — the  scene  of  Prest.  Lincoln's 
assassination. 

After  that,  what  may  he  not  do?  What  is  to  hinder  him  from  trans- 
ferring estates  from  one  man  to  another,  annulling  land  titles  and 
dissolving  the  tie  of  marriage? 

And  when  Ford  told  him  of  Stanton's  letter  and  the  President's 
decision,  another  persistent  diarist,  Orville  Browning  (who 
shortly,  however,  became  Johnson's  Secretary  of  the  Interior), 
grumbled:  "Nothing  could  be  more  despotic,  and  yet  in  this  free 
Country  Mr  Ford  is  utterly  helpless,  and  without  the  means  of 
redress." 

With  the  understanding  that  it  would  be  fully  protected  and 

"John  T.  Ford  Papers. 
"June  18,  1865. 
"  John  T.  Ford  Papers. 
"Beale's  ed.,  p.  491. 


298  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

either  restored  to  Ford  or  purchased  for  $100,000,  the  theater  was 
held  under  a  lease  running  from  July  8th,  1865,  to  June  30th, 
1866,  at  a  rental  of  $1,500  a  month.79  Purchase  which  had  been 
recommended  to  Congress  by  the  Secretary  of  War,  was  then  ef- 
fected on  Ford's  terms,  which  some  had  regarded  as  considerably 
above  the  intrinsic  value.  These  are  the  facts  in  the  case.  The 
notion  that  Ford's  property  was  wrested  from  him  by  a  trick  and 
at  the  Government's  appraisal  is  utterly  erroneous. 

There  were  Washingtonians  who  hoped  that  the  building  might 
be  devoted  to  the  use  of  a  public  lending-library.  Endorsing  this 
idea,  the  Chronicle  remarked:  80 

The  Congressional  library  is  out  of  the  way  and  is  never  open  in  the 
evening.  Books  cannot  be  borrowed  thence  except  by  the  favor  of  some 
official.  It  is  of  little  use  to  the  citizens  of  Washington. 

This  proposal  apparently  met  with  no  official  response  and  the 
refitted  theater  became  part  of  the  office  of  the  Surgeon-General, 
United  States  Army.  In  it  new  quarters  were  found  for  the  Army 
Medical  Museum,  to  whose  catalogue  of  singular  exhibits  the 
three  vertebras  of  John  Booth,  with  the  fragment  of  his  spinal 
cord,  were  duly  added. 

The  news  of  the  assassination  had  been  kept  from  the  wounded 
Seward,  but  on  Sunday,  April  16th,  he  asked  to  have  his  bed 
moved  so  that  he  could  get  a  view  over  Lafayette  Park,  where  the 
trees  were  coming  into  leaf.  Beyond  the  park  he  caught  sight  of 
a  flag  at  half-staff  above  the  portico  of  the  War  Department's 
barracklike  headquarters.  After  an  interval  he  said  to  his  attend- 
ant: "The  President  is  dead!"— and  to  the  attendant's  faltering 
denial  he  answered: 

"If  he  had  been  alive,  he  would  have  been  the  first  to  call  on  me; 
but  he  has  not  been  here  nor  sent  to  ask  how  I  am— and  there  is 
the  flag!"  And  the  tears  began  to  fall.81 

It  was  the  10th  of  July  before  he  was  reported  to  be  well  along 
toward  recovery.  Shock  hastened  the  death  of  his  invalid  wife;  but 

"The  original  abstract  (Lincoln  Museum)  of  payments  shows  a  total  of  $17,661.29. 

80  Weekly  ed.,  July  22,  1865. 

81  Carpenter,  "Six  Months  at  the  White  House";  pp.  291-292. 


THIS  WAS  HE  299 

in  1867  the  resilient  Secretary,  with  his  "head  like  a  wise  macaw" 
(as  Henry  Adams  described  him),  was  inducing  a  reluctant  Con- 
gress to  buy  Alaska  for  $7,200,000— a  sum  that  would  have  been 
spent  on  but  two  or  three  days  of  the  war  during  its  final  year. 

On  June  10th,  1867,  John  H.  Surratt,  under  indictment  as  a 
party  to  Lincoln's  murder,  was  brought  to  trial  in  the  criminal 
court  for  the  District  of  Columbia.  For  more  than  two  years  his  life 
had  been  one  of  far-ranging  adventure.  It  was  on  April  21st,  1866, 
that  a  certain  Henri  Beaumont  de  Ste.  Marie,  by  birth  a  French- 
Canadian,  had  called  at  the  United  States  legation  in  Rome  to  in- 
form Minister  Rufus  King  that  Surratt,  under  the  name  John 
Watson,  had  enlisted  in  the  3rd  company  of  Pontifical  Zouaves  and 
was  then  with  it  at  Sezze.  Ste.  Marie  declared  he  had  known  both 
Surratt  and  Weichmann  in  Maryland,  and  that  Weichmann  and 
he  had  been  instructors  together  at  St.  Matthew's  Institute  in 
Washington.  He  said  he  had  later  entered  the  Union  army  as  a 
substitute  and  been  taken  prisoner,  and  when  released  had  gone 
to  England,  to  Canada,  and  thence  to  Italy,  where  he  had  joined 
the  9th  company  of  the  Pontifical  Zouaves. 

Although  there  was  no  extradition  treaty  between  the  United 
States  and  the  Vatican,  it  was  granted  that  in  a  case  so  exceptional 
Zouave  John  Watson  should  be  delivered  up  and  forthwith  he  was 
arrested  at  Veroli,  where  he  happened  to  be  on  leave.  On  Novem- 
ber 8th,  1866,  he  broke  away  from  his  six  guards  and  escaped  by 
plunging  into  a  ravine;  on  the  27th,  still  in  his  Zouave  uniform,  he 
was  arrested  at  Alexandria,  Egypt,  by  United  States  Consul  Hale; 
and  on  December  21st,  without  objection  by  the  Egyptian  gov- 
ernment, was  turned  over  to  Commander  Jeffers  of  the  Swatara, 
aboard  which  vessel  he  was  conveyed  back  to  his  native  land.  His 
trial  lasted  from  June  10th  to  August  11th,  1867,  but  the  jury  dis- 
agreed; four  being  for  conviction,  eight  for  acquittal.  Arraigned 
for  a  second  time,  he  was  discharged  by  the  court.  Two  Balti- 
moreans  contributed  generously  toward  his  defense,82  and  he  after- 
ward made  his  home  in  Baltimore,  where  he  was  employed  as 
auditor  by  the  Old  Bay  Line  (the  Baltimore  Steam  Packet  Com- 
pany). 

"Washington  Post,  Apr.  3,  1898. 


300  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Booth's  memorandum  book  was  not  produced  in  evidence  dur- 
ing the  Conspiracy  Trial.  In  February  1867  Col.  Lafayette  C. 
Baker  (who  meanwhile  had  retired  from  his  wartime  post)  was 
summoned  to  testify  before  the  House  Committee  on  the  Judici- 
ary, which  was  busily  gathering  evidence  looking  toward  impeach- 
ment of  President  Johnson.83  On  February  7th,  upon  examining 
the  book,  Colonel  Baker  testified  that  in  his  opinion  it  was  not 
then  in  the  condition  in  which  it  had  been  when  Conger  and  he 
delivered  it  to  Stanton  on  the  afternoon  of  April  26th,  1865.  Cards 
and  slips  of  paper,  bearing  "names  of  persons  in  lower  Maryland," 
were  missing,  he  said,  from  the  pocket  at  the  back,  and  so  was  "a 
drawing  of  a  house."  Moreover,  he  believed  that  at  one  place  six- 
teen or  eighteen  leaves  had  been  cut  out  since  the  book  was 
handed  over  to  the  Secretary.  He  admitted  that  he  had  had  the 
book  in  his  possession  but  "a  very  short  time"  and  that  his  "recol- 
lection" was  "quite  indistinct."  84  The  Judge  Advocate  General 
(Holt)  told  the  Committee  on  April  2nd: 

There  was  nothing  in  the  diary  which  I  could  conceive  would  be 
testimony  against  any  human  being,  or  for  any  one  except  Booth  him- 
self, and  he  being  dead,  I  did  not  offer  it  to  the  Commission.  I  will 
state  that  it  has  been  in  my  possession  ever  since,  and  kept  locked  up 
at  my  residence  almost  invariably.  It  is  now  in  precisely  the  same  con- 
dition that  it  was  when  it  came  into  my  hands. 

You  observe  this  is  an  old  diary,  one  which  had  evidently  been  a 
good  deal  used  by  him.  I  think  it  not  unlikely  that  the  missing  leaves 
contained  current  entries  in  regard  to  his  personal  matters  which  he 
did  not  choose  to  have  exposed,  and  that  he  had  torn  them  out  himself; 
or  there  is  another  theory  which  may  possibly  have  been  the  correct 
one;  they  may  have  contained  entries  which  compromised  his  friends 
and  co-conspirators,  and  he  for  that  reason  tore  them  out. 
[Here  he  read  the  text  of  the  diary.] 

That  is  all  that  is  written  in  the  diary,  except  some  figures  and  letters, 
unintelligible  to  me,  though  it  is  probable  they  were  memoranda 
intended  to  indicate  where  he  was  in  his  flight  on  certain  days  of  the 
week  and  month.85 

Lieut.  Col.  E.  J.  Conger,  testifying  on  May  13th,  said  that  he 
had   seen   the   memorandum   book   that   day   and   examined  it 

83  Articles  of  impeachment  were  finally  presented  to  the  Senate  in  March  1868. 

84  House  Report;  pp.  32-33. 

85  lb.;  pp.  285-287. 


THIS  WAS  HE  301 

closely.  He  thought  it  to  be  in  the  same  general  condition  as  it 
had  been  when  delivered  to  Stanton.  Aboard  the  steamer,  when 
coming  from  Belle  Plain  to  Washington  on  April  26th,  1865,  he 
had  had  ample  opportunity  to  inspect  Booth's  so-called  diary— he 
had  even  made  a  copy  of  the  text.  A  few  leaves  were  missing  then: 
"There  were  some  out  and  I  think  the  same."  As  far  as  he  could 
see,  the  only  difference  was  that  a  little  bunch  of  shavings,  taken 
from  Booth  at  Garrett's,  had  been  placed  in  the  book.86 

On  May  14th,  in  reply  to  an  executive  order  of  the  9th,  Stanton 
furnished  to  President  Johnson  an  official  copy  of  the  text  of  the 
Booth  diary,  certified  by  Holt.  In  an  accompanying  letter,  Stanton 
asserted  that  the  book  as  delivered  by  Conger  and  Baker  had  been 
found  to  contain  "only  the  entries  certified  by  General  Holt,  also 
some  photographs  of  females."  The  Secretary  added: 

Immediately  preceding  the  entries  some  pages  appeared  to  have  been 
cut  out,  but  there  was  nothing  indicating  what  had  been  written 
thereon  or  whether  anything  had  been  written,  nor  when  or  by  whom 
they  had  been  cut  out. 

Holt's  report,  submitted  with  the  copy  of  the  diary,  conjectured 
quite  sensibly: 

The  "diary"  purports  to  be  one  for  1864,  and  the  leaves  cut  or  torn 
from  it  probably  contained  entries  of  that  year  and  were  thus  destroyed 
by  Booth  himself.87 

To  anyone  who  has  studied  this  noted  relic  at  first  hand,  it 
seems  evident  that  a  heavy  knife  lopped  away  the  missing  pages 
in  one  batch.  It  is  likely  that  whatever  they  contained  (if  any- 
thing) was  of  a  strictly  personal  nature,  for  the  John  Booth  of 
1865  had  no  discernible  scruples  about  involving  others  in  the 
consequences  of  his  treasonable  projects.  Phrases  of  bygone  dal- 
liance remained  among  the  new  entries:  Ti  amo,  Siempre  lo 
mismo,  Toujours  le  meme,  Amo  a  ti— as  if  the  writer  had  been 
setting  them  down  for  use  in  his  lighter  correspondence.  There 
was  also  a  jury-rigged  calendar  in  which  Booth  had  roughly  laid 
out  the  days,  beginning  with  Monday,  April  17th  (after  he  had 
gained  a  refuge  in  the  short  pines)  and  running  well  into  June. 

88  lb.;  pp.  323-325,  329.  See  also  his  testimony  at  the  Surratt  Trial. 
87  Intelligencer,  May  21,  1867.  Of  the  "females,"  four  were  actresses:  Fay   (Fanny) 
Brown,  Eflie  Germon,  Alice  Grey,  Helen  Western. 


302  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Each  day  had  been  crossed  out,  from  April  17th  down  to  (and 
including)  the  25th— before  sunrise  of  the  26th  the  flight  was 
ended. 

The  " diary"  is  not  a  diary  in  any  proper  sense;  but  the  pen- 
ciled lines,  blurred  in  spots  from  much  handling,  form  a  remark- 
able human  document.  Here  follows  the  authentic  text,  from  a 
recension  of  the  original.88 

April  13 — 14  Friday  the  Ides 
Until  to  day  nothing  was  ever  thought  of  sacrificing  to  our  country's 
wrongs.  For  six  months  we  had  worked  to  capture.  But  our  cause  being 
almost  lost,  something  decisive  &  great  must  be  done.  But  its  failure 
was  owing  to  others,  who  did  not  strike  for  their  country  with  a  heart. 
I  struck  boldly  and  not  as  the  papers  say.  I  walked  with  a  firm  step 
through  a  thousand  of  his  friends,  was  stopped  but  pushed  on.  A 
colonel  was  at  his  side.  I  shouted  Sic  semper  before  I  fired.  In  jumping 
broke  my  leg.  I  passed  all  his  pickets,  rode  sixty  miles  that  night  with 
the  bone  of  my  leg  tearing  the  flesh  at  every  jump.  I  can  never  repent 
it,  though  we  hated  to  kill.  Our  country  owed  all  her  trouble  to  him, 
and  God  simply  made  me  the  instrument  of  his  punishment.  The 
country  is  not  what  it  was.  This  forced  union  is  not  what  I  have  loved. 
I  care  not  what  becomes  of  me.  I  have  no  desire  to  out-live  my  country. 
This  night  (before  the  deed),  I  wrote  a  long  article  and  left  it  for  one 
of  the  Editors  of  the  National  Inteligencer,  in  which  I  fully  set  forth 
our  reasons  for  our  proceedings.  He  or  the  Govmt 

Friday  21 
After  being  hunted  like  a  dog  through  swamps,  woods,  and  last  night 
being  chased  by  gun-boats  till  I  was  forced  to  return  wet  cold  and 
starving,  with  every  man's  hand  against  me,  I  am  here  in  despair.  And 
why?  For  doing  what  Brutus  was  honored  for.  What  made  Tell  a  Hero. 
And  yet  I  for  striking  down  a  greater  tyrant  than  they  ever  knew  am 
looked  upon  as  a  common  cutthroat.  My  action  was  purer  than  either 
of  theirs.  One  hoped  to  be  great  himself.  The  other  had  not  only  his 
country's  but  his  own  wrongs  to  avenge.  I  hoped  for  no  gain.  I  knew 
no  private  wrong.  I  struck  for  my  country  and  that  alone.  A  country 
groaned  beneath  this  tyranny  and  prayed  for  this  end,  and  yet  now 
behold  the  cold  hand  they  extend  to  me.  God  cannot  pardon  me  if  I 
have  done  wrong.  Yet  I  cannot  see  any  wrong  except  in  serving  a 
degenerate  people.  The  little,  the  very  little  I  left  behind  to  clear  my 
name,  the  Govmt  will  not  allow  to  be  printed.  So  ends  all.  For  my 
country  I  have  given  up  all  that  makes  life  sweet  and  Holy,  brought 
misery  upon  my  family,  and  am  sure  there  is  no  pardon  in  the  Heaven 

88  In  the  office  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General,  Washington. 


THIS  WAS  HE  303 

for  me  since  man  condemns  me  so.  I  have  only  heard  what  has  been 
done  (except  what  I  did  myself)  and  it  fills  me  with  horror.  God  try 
and  forgive  me,  and  bless  my  mother.  To  night  I  will  once  more  try 
the  river  with  the  intent  to  cross,  though  I  have  a  greater  desire  and 
almost  a  mind  to  return  to  Washington  and  in  a  measure  clear  my 
name,  which  I  feel  I  can  do.  I  do  not  repent  the  blow  I  struck.  I  may 
before  my  God  but  not  to  man. 

I  think  I  have  done  well,  though  I  am  abandoned,  with  the  curse  of 
Cain  upon  me.  When  if  the  world  knew  my  heart,  that  one  blow  would 
have  made  me  great,  though  I  did  desire  no  greatness. 

To  night  I  try  to  escape  these  blood  hounds  once  more.  Who,  who 
can  read  his  fate.  God's  will  be  done. 

I  have  too  great  a  soul  to  die  like  a  criminal.  Oh  may  he,  may  he 
spare  me  that  and  let  me  die  bravely. 

I  bless  the  entire  world.  Have  never  hated  or  wronged  anyone.  This 
last  was  not  a  wrong,  unless  God  deems  it  so.  And  it's  with  him  to  damn 
or  bless  me.  And  for  this  brave  boy  with  me  who  often  prays  (yes, 
before  and  since)  with  a  true  and  sincere  heart,  was  it  crime  in  him,  if 
so  why  can  he  pray  the  same.  I  do  not  wish  to  shed  a  drop  of  blood, 
but  I  "must  fight  the  course".  'Tis  all  that's  left  me. 

This  outpouring  falls  into  two  divisions,  of  which  the  first— 
apparently  cut  short  by  an  unexplained  interruption— remains  in- 
complete. The  date  in  either  case  signifies  little.  In  the  effort  to 
preserve  a  dramatic  connection  with  Shakespeare's  Brutus  and  the 
fateful  Ides  of  March,  we  have  "April  13-14,"  the  Ides  of  April 
being  on  the  13th  of  that  month.  It  was  not,  of  course  until  the 
15th  that  "the  papers"  told  of  Booth's  deed  at  all;  and  Booth  had 
seen  no  newspapers  until  Jones  brought  some  to  him.  Nor  was 
Booth  "chased  by  gun-boats"  on  Thursday,  April  20th;  for  Jones 
explicitly  says  that  "Wednesday  and  Thursday  passed  unevent- 
fully," that  he  had  not  "visited  the  fugitives  at  night"  until  Fri- 
day, and  that  previous  to  Friday  no  attempt  had  been  made  to  get 
Booth  and  Herold  across  the  river. 

For  that  matter,  Booth  on  the  night  of  April  14th- 15th  had 
ridden  not  sixty  miles  but  only  half  that  distance;  and  the  bone 
of  his  leg  could  not  have  been  "tearing  the  flesh,"  inasmuch  as 
Doctor  Mudd  stated  that  "there  was  nothing  resembling  a  com- 
pound fracture."  Show  has  been  made  of  reading  a  portentous 
meaning  into  the  words  "I  have  a  greater  desire  and  almost  a  mind 
to  return  to  Washington  and  in  a  measure  clear  my  name,  which  I 
feel  I  can  do."  Sagacious  ones  have  insisted  that  he  must  have 


304  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

thought  to  "clear  his  name"  by  unmasking  accomplices  of  high 
degree.  It  was  not  deemed  sufficient  to  view  this  remark,  in  the 
light  of  the  whole  tortured  and  overwrought  avowal,  as  no  more 
than  the  expression  of  a  wild  and  momentary  fancy.  Such,  never- 
theless, it  undoubtedly  is.  As  we  scan  these  jottings  in  their  en- 
tirety, we  may  say  of  John  Booth,  as  Goethe  did  of  Hamlet,  that 
"he  winds,  turns,  agonizes,  advances,  and  recoils."  From  the  pitia- 
ble incoherence,  these  revealing  sentences  emerge: 

"Our  country  owed  all  her  trouble  to  him,  and  God  simply  made  me 
the  instrument  of  his  punishment." 

"1  hoped  for  no  gain.  I  knew  no  private  wrong.  I  struck  for  my 
country  and  that  alone/' 

In  August  1867  President  Johnson  dismissed  Stanton  from  of- 
fice and  appointed  General  Grant  to  be  Secretary  of  War  ad  in- 
terim until  the  wishes  of  Congress  might  be  learned.  It  was  while 
Grant  held  tenure  that  Edwin  Booth  addressed  to  him  this  letter: 

Barnum's  Hotel 
Baltimore 
Septr  11th 
1867 
Genl  U.  S.  Grant 

Sir: 

Having  once  received  a  promise  from  Mr  Stanton  that  the  family  of 
John  Wilkes  Booth  should  be  permitted  to  obtain  the  body  when  suf- 
ficient time  had  elapsed,  I  yielded  to  the  entreaties  of  my  Mother  and 
applied  for  it  to  the  'Secretary  of  War' — I  fear  too  soon,  for  the  letter 
was  unheeded — if,  indeed,  it  ever  reached  him. 

I  now  appeal  to  you — on  behalf  of  my  heart-broken  Mother — that 
she  may  receive  the  remains  of  her  son. — 

You,  sir,  can  understand  what  a  consolation  it  would  be  to  an  aged 
parent  to  have  the  privilege  of  visiting  the  grave  of  her  child,  and  I 
feel  assured  that  you  will,  even  in  the  midst  of  your  most  pressing 
duties,  feel  a  touch  of  sympathy  for  her — one  of  the  greatest  sufferers 
living. 

May  I  not  hope  too  that  you  will  listen  to  our  entreaties  and  send  me 
some  encouragement — some  information  how  and  when  the  remains 
may  be  obtained? 

By  so  doing  you  will  receive  the  gratitude  of  a  most  unhappy  family, 
and  will — I  am  sure — be  justified  by  all  right-thinking  minds  should 
the  matter  ever  become  known  to  others  than  ourselves. 


THIS  WAS  HE  305 

I  shall  remain  in  Baltimore  two  weeks  from  the  date  of  this  letter 
— during  which  time  I  could  send  a  trust-worthy  person  to  bring  hither 
and  privately  bury  the  remains  in  the  family  grounds,  thus  relieving 
my  poor  mother  of  much  misery. 

Apologizing  for  my  intrusion,  and  anxiously  awaiting  a  reply  to 
this — 
I  am,  sir,  with  great  respect 

Yr  obt  sert 

Edwin  Booth 

Search  made  in  the  files  of  the  War  Department  at  the  request  of 
Herman  H.  Kohlsaat,  former  editor  of  various  newspapers  in  Chi- 
cago, failed  to  discover  any  reference  to  this  appeal,  which  seem- 
ingly went  as  unheeded  as  did  the  letter  to  Stanton.  By  September 
1867  it  already  had  been  decided  to  raze  the  central  section  of 
the  old  penitentiary  building  and  improve  the  grounds.  These 
changes  made  necessary  the  removal  not  only  of  Booth's  body  but 
also  of  five  others.  Those  of  Paine,  Herold,  Atzerodt,  and  Mrs. 
Surratt  had  been  buried  in  the  penitentiary  yard  with  a  fence 
around  them  and  a  wooden  headboard  marking  each;  and  they 
had  for  neighbor  that  of  Capt.  Henry  Wirz,  one-time  commandant 
of  Camp  Sumter,  the  Confederate  military  prison  at  Anderson- 
ville,  Georgia.  Brought  to  trial  on  August  21st,  1865,  under 
charges  of  inhumanity  toward  Union  prisoners,  and  found  guilty 
on  most  of  the  counts,  he  was  hanged  at  the  Old  Capitol  on  No- 
vember 10th.  (Wirz's  partisans  have  represented  him  as  "the 
victim  of  a  misdirected  popular  clamor,"  and  Wirz  described  him- 
self as  the  tool  of  his  superiors;  but  Confederate  reports  show 
that  Andersonville  must  have  justified  the  remark  of  Lieut.  Col. 
D.  T.  Chandler,  C.S.A.:  "This  beats  anything  I  ever  saw;  it  is, 
indeed,  a  hell  on  earth.")89 

On  October  1st,  1867,  all  the  bodies  were  transferred  to  the 
arsenal's  "warehouse  1,"  a  building  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
grounds  and  little  used,  and  there,  within  a  capacious  room  having 
stone  pavement,  heavy  iron  doors,  and  walls  lined  with  pigeon- 
holes, they  were  ranged  in  a  trench  about  eight  feet  wide  and  six 
deep.  Booth  was  put  at  the  right-hand  end  and,  by  order  of  the 

■•Official  Records,  II,  vol.  vii,    (serial,    120);  p.  759.  See  Chandler's  report,  ib.; 
pp.  546-550,  and  Chief  Surgeon  White's  report,  pp.  557-560. 


306  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

War  Department,  wooden  markers  carried  the  respective  names. 
After  this  burial,  the  warehouse  was  kept  strictly  closed.90 

Andrew  Johnson's  vexed  term  was  drawing  to  its  end  when 
Edwin  Booth  sent  a  third  petition. 

N  Y  February  10  1869 
Andrew  Johnson  Esq 
President  United  States 

Dear  Sir — 

May  I  not  now  ask  your  kind  consideration  of  my  poor  Mother's  re- 
quest in  relation  to  her  son's  remains? 

The  bearer  of  this  (Mr  John  Weaver)  is  sexton  of  Christ  Church, 
Baltimore,  who  will  observe  the  strictest  secrecy  in  this  matter — and 
you  may  rest  assured  that  none  of  my  family  desire  its  publicity. 

Unable  to  visit  Washington,  I  have  deputed  Mr  Weaver — in  whom  I 
have  the  fullest  confidence,  and  I  beg  that  you  will  not  delay  in  order- 
ing the  body  to  be  given  to  his  care.  He  will  retain  it  (placing  it  in 
his  vault)  until  such  time  as  we  can  remove  other  members  of  our 
family  to  the  Baltimore  Cemetery,  and  thus  prevent  any  special  notice 
of  it. 

There  is  also  (I  am  told)  a  trunk  of  his  at  the  National  Hotel — which 
I  once  applied  for  but  was  refused — it  being  under  seal  of  the  War 
Dept.,  it  may  contain  relics  of  the  poor  misguided  boy — which  would 
be  dear  to  his  sorrowing  Mother,  and  of  no  use  to  anyone.  Your  Ex- 
cellency would  greatly  lessen  the  crushing  weight  of  grief  that  is  hurry- 
ing my  Mother  to  the  grave  by  giving  immediate  orders  for  the  safe 
delivery  of  the  remains  of  John  Wilkes  Booth  to  Mr  Weaver,  and  gain 
the  lasting  gratitude  of 

Yr.  obt.  servt. 

Edwin  Booth 

On  February  3rd  Edwin  had  launched  in  New  York  the  new 
Booth's  Theatre,  the  finest  in  the  United  States,91  with  a  lavish 
production  of  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  in  which  he  appeared  as 
Romeo,  Mary  McVicker  (who  in  June  became  his  wife)  as  Juliet, 
Edwin  Adams  as  Mercutio.  This  ran  until  April  10th  and  was  fol- 
lowed immediately  by  Othello.  Years  later  the  Century  Magazine 
was  authorized  to  correct92  the  frequent  but  unwarranted  state- 
ment that  Edwin  Booth,  in  spite  of  his  letter  of  February  10th, 

90  New  York  Times,  Oct.  4,  30,  1867;  Feb.  9,  10,  1869.  New  York  World,  Feb.  10, 
14,  16,  1869.  Washington  Star,  Jan.  5,  1907. 

81  At  the  southeast  corner  of  Sixth  Avenue  and  23rd  Street. 

82  Apr.   1909;  p.  920. 


THIS  WAS  HE  307 

accompanied  Weaver.  "After  the  tragedy,"  the  Century  said, 
"Edwin  Booth  never  set  foot  in  Washington"  except  when  sub- 
poenaed on  behalf  of  the  defendants  in  the  Conspiracy  Trial. 

Christ  Church  (Protestant  Episcopal)  which  the  Booths  had 
attended  and  of  whose  Sunday  school  John  Booth  was  at  one  time 
a  member,  was  at  the  southwest  corner  of  Gay  and  Fayette  Streets, 
and  at  22  Fayette  Street,  near  the  church,  was  John  H.  Weaver's 
cabinetmaking  and  undertaking  establishment.  On  Friday  the 
12th  Weaver  obtained  an  audience  with  President  Johnson,  and 
Johnson  on  the  ensuing  Monday  issued  this  order  to  Gen.  John 
M.  Schofield,  Secretary  of  War: 

Executive  Mansion, 
February  15th  1869 
The  Honorable  the  Secretary  of  War  will  cause  to  be  delivered  to  Mr. 
John  Weaver,  Sexton  of  Christ  Church,  Baltimore,  the  remains  of  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  for  the  purposes  mentioned  in  the  within  communica- 
tion. 

Andrew  Johnson 

The  following  order  was  in  turn  dispatched  from  the  office  of 
Gen.  E.  D.  Townsend,  Assistant  Adjutant-General: 

War  Dept 
Feby  15,  1869 
Bvt  Maj  Gen  G.  D.  Ramsay, 
U.  S.  Army, 

Comdg  Washington  Arsenal 
City  of  Washington 
Sir: 

The  President  directs  that  the  body  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  interred 
at  the  Washington  Arsenal,  be  delivered  to  Mr  John  Weaver,  Sexton 
of  Christ-Church  Baltimore,  Md. — for  the  purpose  of  having  it  re- 
moved and  properly  interred. 

Please  report  the  execution  of  this  order. 

I  am  Sec 

EDT 
A.  A.  G. 

Weaver  had  sought  the  aid  of  Harvey  and  Marr,  a  local  under- 
taking firm  at  335  F  Street,  around  the  corner  from  what  had 
been  Ford's  Theatre;  and  W.  R.  Speare,  a  youth  in  the  firm's 
employ  who  later  set  up  for  himself  as  undertaker,  was  instructed 
to  go  to  the  arsenal  that  afternoon  with  a  light  furniture  van. 


308  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

About  four  o'clock  he  was  joined  by  Weaver  and  R.  F.  Harvey, 
who  drove  to  the  grounds  in  a  carriage,  and  Weaver  then  had  a 
brief  interview  with  Captain  Phipps,  officer  of  the  day  at  the  post. 
At  "warehouse  1"  the  storekeeper  opened  the  great  iron  doors  and 
led  the  way  into  the  high-ceilinged  room  that  had  served  as  burial 
vault.  Two  bodies,  those  of  Mrs.  Surratt  and  Davy  Herold,  al- 
ready had  been  taken  out  and  given  to  the  claimants  empowered 
to  receive  them;  and  in  this  protected  spot  there  was  an  odor  of 
earth  freshly  dug. 

After  a  little  spade  work,  men  of  the  Ordnance  Corps  raised  to 
the  surface  without  difficulty  the  pine  case  at  the  right-hand  end 
of  the  trench.  It  was  but  slightly  decayed;  and  when  the  thick 
coating  of  soil  had  been  dislodged,  the  name  JOHN  WILKES 
BOOTH  in  black-painted  capitals  was  readily  legible.  All  was  in 
order,  as  the  War  Department  had  provided.  Four  soldiers  carried 
the  box  to  the  van,  and  about  six  o'clock,  as  the  streets  of  Wash- 
ington filled  with  people  bound  homeward,  the  van  drew  up  to 
Harvey  and  Marr's  back  door  and  stood  in  the  very  alley  from 
which  John  Booth  had  dashed,  that  April  night  of  1865.93 

The  box  was  taken  into  Harvey  and  Marr's  workshop  by  assist- 
ants, among  whom  was  a  volunteer,  James  Croggon,  reporter  for 
the  Star.  Harvey  had  said  to  Croggon:  "Don't  ask  any  questions, 
but  be  at  our  place  at  six  o'clock  this  evening  as  one  of  my  assist- 
ants, and  you  will  get  a  good  item."  94  Croggon  was  there,  helped 
to  lay  the  box  on  trestles,  and  watched  as  the  body  was  identified 
for  the  third  time.  He  saw  Weaver  lift  the  head  and  examine  it- 
it  still  had  the  "fine  suit  of  hair,"  distinctive  as  in  life.  He  saw  a 
man  enter  from  the  office  and  intently  study  the  teeth,  heard  him 
announce  with  emphasis:  "This  is  Wilkes  Booth,  for  this  is  some 
of  my  work."  It  was  a  dentist  from  Baltimore,  whose  opinion  had 
been  sought  in  the  case.  The  reporter  also  saw  a  high  boot  on  one 
leg  and  on  one  a  rough  shoe  which  he  mistakenly  thought  had 
been  improvised  by  cutting  away  the  other  boot's  long  top.  He 
understood  that  a  brother  of  John's  was  in  Harvey  and  Marr's 

93  World  (New  York),  Feb.  9,  1869  (P-  »)>  Feb.  16,  p.  1.  Sun  (New  York),  Feb.  17 
(p.  1).  Intelligencer,  Feb.  16   (p.  3).  Washington  Evening  Star,  Jan.  5,  1907. 

"Croggon  (1835-1916)  was  active  on  the  Star  from  1862  to  1894,  and  wrote  special 
articles  until  1915. 


From  a  photograph  in  the  Robinson  Locke  Collection,  New  York  Public  Library 


A  PART  OF  THE  BOOTH  LOT  IN  GREEN  MOUNT  AS  IT  FORMERLY 

APPEARED 

(At  the  rear  of  the  large  monument  may  be  seen  one  end  of  an  ivy-covered 
mound,  with  a  rosebush  on  it.  Under  that  mound  John  Booth  was  buried) 


THIS  WAS  HE  309 

front  room.  It  was  not  Edwin,  as  he  supposed,  but  "Doc"  Booth, 
awaiting  the  reports  of  Weaver  and  the  dentist.95 

Shifted  to  a  plain  deal  coffin,  the  body  was  conveyed  to  the  train 
leaving  Washington  at  seven-thirty  and  reaching  Baltimore  at 
nine.  From  the  train  it  was  removed  to  Weaver's  on  Fayette 
Street,  and  that  night  John  T.  Ford,  who  had  been  keeping  gen- 
eral oversight  of  the  matter,  sent  a  telegram  marked  "Deliver  to- 
night sure."  It  read  (as  delivered): 

Balto  Md    Feb  15  1869 
Edwin  Booth 

Booths  Theatre  N  Y 


Successful  and  in  our  possession  here 


J  T  Ford 


Edwin  saved  this  message  in  his  files,  and  on  the  reverse  of  the 
blank  he  penciled:  "John's  body."  96 

Next  day  General  Ramsay  forwarded  this  notice  to  General 
Townsend: 

Washington  Arsenal, 

Washington,  D.  C,  Feby  16th 

[1869 

Maj.  Gen.  E.  D.  Townsend 
Asst.  Adjt.  General  U.  S.  Army 
Washington  D.  C. 
Sir: 

I  have  the  honor  to  report  that  the  body  of  John  Wilkes  Booth  was, 
on  Monday  afternoon  the  15th  inst.,  delivered  to  the  person  designated 
in  the  order  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  of  the  same  date. 
I  am,  Sir, 

Very  respectfully 
Your  Obdt.  Servt. 
Geo  D  Ramsay 
Bvt.  Maj.  Gen.  U.  S. 

[Army 
Commanding 

Everything  had  been  regular.  At  the  Garrett  farm  and  aboard 
the  Montauk  the  body  had  been  identified  past  doubt.  While  in 

95  Star,  Jan.  5,  1907;  pt.  3,  p.  1. 

88  From  the  original,  by  courtesy  of  The  Players,  New  York. 


310  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

the  War  Department's  possession  it  had  been  carefully  marked 
and  thoroughly  secured.  The  same  body  had  now  been  given  up 
without  obstacle  or  evasion.97 

The  privacy  Edwin  Booth  so  much  desired  was  quickly  invaded. 
Early  on  Tuesday  the  16th  a  crowd  assembled  in  the  vicinity  of 
Weaver's  and  by  afternoon  hundreds  of  curious  persons  visited 
the  place.  Many  were  allowed  to  view  the  body.  Souvenir  hunters 
cut  away  pieces  of  blanket  and  locks  of  hair.  Throughout  the  city, 
John  Booth  was  a  subject  of  general  talk.98  The  Booth  lot,  where 
lay  Richard  and  Junius  Brutus  the  elder,  was  in  the  old  Baltimore 
Cemetery,  and  the  morning's  Sun  had  informed  Baltimoreans  that 
John's  remains  would  be  deposited  there.  Hence,  to  the  annoy- 
ance of  cemetery  officials,  throngs  flocked  to  Baltimore  Cemetery 
all  day  long  and  streamed  back  again  in  disappointment.  The 
body,  in  what  the  Sun  described  as  "a  handsome  mahogany  case, 
with  hinged  lid  and  glass  plate,"  99  remained  for  two  days  in  a 
back  room  at  Weaver's  and  was  identified  with  extraordinary 
conclusiveness. 

On  Wednesday  the  17th  a  rehearsal  was  in  full  swing  at  the 
Holliday  Street  Theatre  when  Manager  John  T.  Ford  appeared. 
In  an  undertone  he  exchanged  a  few  words  with  Charles  B. 
Bishop,  at  that  time  a  member  of  the  company.  (Bishop,  a  well- 
liked  comedian,  was  also  a  good  friend  of  Edwin  Booth's.)  Then 
he  turned  to  Blanche  Chapman,  saying:  "Blanche,  I  want  you  to 
keep  your  eyes  and  ears  open  but  your  mouth  shut."  With  Bishop 
he  marshaled  Miss  Chapman  and  her  sister  Ella  out  of  the  stage 
entrance,  and  the  four  crossed  the  street  to  Weaver's  undertaking 
rooms.  They  passed  through  the  front  room  into  a  smaller  one  at 
the  back,  and  among  those  gathered  there  Blanche  at  once  recog- 
nized the  grief-stricken  Mary  Ann  Booth  and  Rosalie,  John's  older 
sister,  with  both  of  whom  she  had  become  well  acquainted  in 
New  York.  Dr.  J.  A.  Booth,  too,  was  in  the  group,  and  John  H. 
Weaver,  and  Harry  Ford,  whom  Blanche  was  later  to  marry 
though  as  yet  she  was  not  engaged. 

She  next  was  aware  of  what  seemed  the  focus  of  interest— a 

97  All  the  other  bodies  were  released  from  the  custody  of  the  War  Department  and 
interred  in  various  Washington  graveyards. 

08  New  York  Times,  Feb.  17,  1869;  p.  1.  Baltimore  Sim,  June  4,  1903;  p.  12. 

09  Feb.  17th;  p.  1. 


THIS  WAS  HE  311 

coffined  body.  The  lips  had  receded,  making  conspicuous  a  fine 
set  of  teeth;  and  the  head,  with  its  parchmentlike  skin,  was  topped 
by  an  abundance  of  jet-black,  wavy  hair.  Weaver  had  a  chart 
showing  the  work  done  by  the  Baltimore  dentist,  and  this  he 
handed  to  "Doc"  Booth,  who  passed  it  to  Bishop.  Bishop  care- 
fully drew  out  a  tooth  that  newspapers  afterward  referred  to  as 
"peculiarly  plugged"— the  filling  being  characteristic  enough  to 
be  regarded  as  evidential.  ("Doc"  Booth  knew  of  it  through  the 
dentist's  report  at  Harvey  and  Marr's,  if  not  before.)  After  that, 
the  left  leg  was  inspected.  Bishop  unwrapped  what  Miss  Chapman 
judged  was  a  bandage;  she  noticed  the  shoe  on  that  foot;  and  the 
men  all  gazed  at  the  injured  leg  and  were  satisfied. 

At  Weaver's  request,  Blanche,  with  scissors  he  provided,  cut 
from  the  brow  a  generous  lock  of  hair.  Mary  Ann  Booth  took  it, 
gave  a  strand  to  Blanche,  another  to  Ella.  Blanche  had  not  known 
John  Booth,  but  Harry  Ford,  who  had  been  his  friend,  told 
Blanche  that  in  its  contours  and  features  the  head  was  unmis- 
takably John's— that  additional  proof  had  really  been  unnecessary. 
The  Booths  were  convinced;  so  was  John  T.  Ford,  who  (as  he 
said)  had  known  John  "since  childhood"  and  was  not  likely  to  be 
deceived.100 

During  the  two  days,  February  16th  and  17th,  many  others  iden- 
tified the  body.  Among  these  was  Norval  E.  Foard  (1837-1906),  a 
newspaperman  who  had  joined  the  staff  of  the  Baltimore  Sun  in 
1865,  who  for  many  years  was  state  editor  of  that  paper,  and 
whose  knowledge  of  Maryland  affairs  was  considered  "truly  re- 
markable." 101  He  visited  Weaver's  in  company  with  John  T.  Ford, 
Maj.  Thomas  W.  Hall,  also  of  the  Sun,  and  John  W.  McCoy,  a 
local  businessman.  The  detached  head,  Foard  said,  was  passed 
around  and  looked  upon102— in  somewhat  the  fashion  that  John, 
as  Hamlet,  might  have  looked  upon  Yorick's  skull.  McCoy,  Hall, 
and  Foard  saw  the  matted  black  hair,  the  teeth;  they  listened  as 
John  T.  Ford  called  attention  to  the  firm  outline  of  the  lower  jaw 
that  still  "bore  resemblance  to  the  living  man."  They  scanned  the 
high  boot  on  one  leg,  the  shoe  like  "an  army  brogan"  on  the  foot 

100  Interview  of  the  present  writer  with  Blanche  Chapman  at  Rutherford,  New 
Jersey,  in  1938. 

101  G.  W.  Johnson    (and  others),  "The  Sunpapers  of  Baltimore";  pp.  220-221. 

102  Baltimore  Su?i,  June  4,  1903;  p.  12. 


312  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

of  the  other.  They  agreed  with  John  T.  Ford  that  there  could  be 
no  reasonable  doubt  as  to  the  body's  genuineness. 

So  did  two  young  men  of  Baltimore  who  had  known  John 
Booth  from  the  days  when  they  had  been  fellow-actors  with  him 
in  juvenile  theatricals  of  which  he  was  a  leading  spirit.  They  were 
Dr.  Theodore  Micheau  and  Henry  W.  Mears.  Mears,  who  lived 
until  December  22nd,  1938,  always  protested  that  the  identity  of 
the  body  at  Weaver's  was  beyond  suspicion.  He  said  that  Basil 
("Bas")  Moxley,  doorkeeper  at  the  Holliday  Street  Theatre  (later, 
for  many  years,  at  Ford's  Opera  House),  who  viewed  the  body 
when  Mears  himself  did,  raised  no  question  whatever  at  that 
time.103  Moxley  also  told  the  Fords  that  he  was  confident  the  body 
was  John's. 

It  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1903,  after  the  press  had  for 
weeks  been  agog  with  stories  of  how  Booth  (under  the  name  of 
David  E.  George)  had  committed  suicide  in  Oklahoma,  that  Mox- 
ley, then  nearly  eighty  years  of  age  and  rather  crotchety,  made  in 
the  Baltimore  American  what  that  paper  termed  a  ''remarkable 
disclosure."  104  The  "disclosure"  was  remarkable  in  more  ways 
than  one. 

"You  can  search  all  records  in  Washington,"  Moxley  asserted, 
"or  interview  any  officials  then  in  office  who  are  now  alive  and  I 
will  wager  you  will  be  unable  to  learn  of  any  reward  being  paid 
out  for  the  delivery  of  John  Wilkes  Booth's  body  to  the  govern- 
ment." This  was  false,  and  Moxley  would  have  lost  his  bet.  He 
told  a  rambling  yarn  to  the  effect  that  he  had  been  present  at  a 
meeting  between  Edwin  Booth  and  a  private  detective,  when  the 
detective  showed  Edwin  "four  letters,  all  of  which  were  from  re- 
liable persons  living  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  assuring  the  actor 
that  his  brother  was  not  dead."  Also  he  mentioned  "several  rumors 
to  the  effect  that  John  had  been  seen  at  the  crossroads  near  Pen- 
Mar,"  105  and  told  of  having  "heard  men  say  that  they  had  drunk 
with  him  in  that  locality." 

He  was  now  saying  that  the  body  had  red  hair,  was  "not  that 
of  the  assassin  but  that  of  another  man  forwarded  to  Baltimore  by 

103  From  Mears'  statement  for  the  present  writer. 

104  June  3,  6. 

106  In  Franklin  County,  Pennsylvania,  on  the  Maryland  border. 


THIS  WAS  HE  313 

the  Government."  106  Whereat  Norval  E.  Foard  gave  it  as  his  opin- 
ion that  "if  Mr.  Moxley  saw  the  remains  in  the  Weaver  shop  and 
says  the  hair  was  red  he  is  color  blind."  107 

Joseph  T.  Lowry,  a  Baltimore  photographer,  informed  the  spe- 
cial correspondent  of  the  Boston  Herald: 

I  was  in  the  undertaking  establishment  of  Mr.  Weaver  when  the  body 
of  Booth  was  received  from  Washington.  I  had  seen  Booth  play  20 
times  at  the  Holliday  Street  Theatre  and  knew  him  well  by  sight. 
There  was  not  the  slightest  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  face  of  the  dead 
man  I  looked  upon  was  that  of  the  actor,  whom  I  had  seen  many  times 
in  life.  The  features  were  the  same,  although  considerably  sunken.  His 
dark  hair,  which  was  remarkably  thick  and  curly,  was  well  preserved.108 

Col.  William  M.  Pegram,  who  had  known  John  Booth  for  years, 
viewed  the  body  on  the  morning  of  February  16th.  In  a  paper 
read  at  the  Maryland  Historical  Society's  meeting  on  October 
13th,  1913,109  Colonel  Pegram  referred  to  the  "cavalry  boot"  on 
the  right  leg  and  the  shoe  on  the  opposite  foot— he  called  it  a 
"manufactured"  shoe  because  he  presumed,  as  did  Croggon  at 
Harvey  and  Marr's  in  Washington,  that  it  had  been  extemporized 
from  the  left  boot.  (We  know,  of  course,  that  the  left  boot,  marked 

"J.  Wilkes "  on  its  inner  facing  of  white  calfskin,  had  been 

discovered  at  Mudd's,  intact  except  for  the  slit  the  Doctor  had  cut 
in  removing  it.)  Pegram  furthermore  alluded  to  "the  splendid 
teeth"  and  the  heavy  growth  of  coal-black  hair.  His  impression 
was,  as  he  elsewhere  phrased  it,  that  "Everything  about  the  re- 
mains told  of  the  man,"  no  and  this  was  attested  by  Henry  C. 
Wagner,  also  of  Baltimore,  who  had  gone  with  Pegram  to  Weaver's 
that  day. 

On  the  morning  of  Thursday,  February  13th,  the  body  was 
quietly  placed  in  a  vault  in  Green  Mount  Cemetery— a  vault  be- 

108  Baltimore  Sun,  Mar.  13,  1906. 

107  lb.,  June  4,   1903;  p.   12.  Faded  black  hair  tends  to  take  on  a  reddish  cast. 
("Since   the  color  of  hair  is  a  compound  color,"  said  Dr.   Clark  Wissler  of   the 

American  Museum  of  Natural  History  in  a  letter  to  the  present  writer,  "I  suppose 
this  means  that  the  red  in  the  original  color  fades  last.")  Any  ruddy  tinge,  after 
a  period  of  years,  would  thus  be  accounted  for  in  authentic  specimens  of  John 
Booth's  hair. 

108  Correspondence  dated  Mar.  7,  1903    (John  T.  Ford  Papers). 

109  Printed  in  the  Maryland  Historical  Magazine,  Dec.  1913;  pp.  327-331. 

110  Baltimore  Sun,  June  5,  1903. 


314  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

longing  to  John  H.  Weaver  and  used  as  a  depository  by  him  and 
other  local  undertakers,  a  charge  of  $2.00  a  month  or  fraction 
thereof  being  made  in  each  instance.  On  this  occasion  no  one  was 
present  but  Weaver  and  his  assistants.  The  vault  was  not  a  large 
one,  and  the  coffins  in  it  were  piled  one  upon  another.  Finally 
given  up,  sealed,  and  covered  with  earth,  it  merged  into  the  grassy 
hillside.  It  was  there,  as  the  stub  of  Weaver's  own  record  book 
manifests,  that  John's  body  was  lodged  until  the  fuss  was  over  and 
Edwin's  plans  could  be  realized.111 

Executive  pardon  already  had  been  granted  to  Dr.  Samuel  A. 
Mudd,  and  on  March  2nd  President  Johnson  signed  the  pardons 
of  Samuel  Arnold  and  Edman  Spangler.112  Mudd,  released  from 
Fort  Jefferson  on  March  8th,  arrived  at  Key  West  on  the  12th,  and 
got  back  to  his  home  on  the  20th.113  Spangler  and  Arnold  reached 
Baltimore  on  April  6th.114  Michael  O'Laughlin  did  not  return- 
he  had  died  in  Fort  Jefferson  on  September  23rd,  1867,  during  an 
epidemic  of  yellow  fever.  On  June  17th,  1869,  Miss  Anna  E.  Sur- 
ratt  was  married  in  Washington  to  William  Tonry,  a  chemist  in 
the  office  of  the  Surgeon-General.  "The  bride,"  the  Baltimore  Sun 
reported,115  "was  attended  by  her  brother  Isaac,  while  John  H. 
Surratt  occupied  a  pew  in  front  of  the  altar."  That  same  day  the 
body  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth  the  elder  was  transferred  from  the 
Baltimore  Cemetery  to  Green  Mount  and  there  buried  in  newly 
acquired  ground  (a  certificate  of  ownership  made  out  to  Mary 
Ann  Booth  was  dated  June  13th).  The  body  of  Richard  Booth  also 
was  reburied  in  Green  Mount,  and  presumably  at  the  same  time. 
According  to  the  Sim/16  John's  body  was  to  follow  "during  the 
latter  part  of  next  week."  Junius'  monument  was  brought  from 
the  old  cemetery. 

The  committal  service  for  John  was  held  on  the  afternoon  of 
Saturday,  June  26th.  "At  the  especial  request  of  the  family,"  in 

111  Baltimore  Sun,  Feb.  19,  1869;  p.  1.  Statements  of  David  W.  Jenkins,  funeral 
director,  Baltimore,  for  the  present  writer. 

112  New  York  Times,  Mar.  4. 

113  "Life";  pp.  318-320. 

114  Baltimore  Sun,  Apr.  7. 

115  June  18. 

116  June  19;  p.  1. 


THIS  WAS  HE  315 

the  words  of  the  Sun's  account,117  the  body  was  carried  from  the 
vault  by  pallbearers  chosen  from  "members  of  the  theatrical  pro- 
fession" who  had  known  the  deceased.  "Among  these  was  Mr. 
Gallagher,  who,  it  is  stated,  is  the  only  surviving  pallbearer  of 
those  who  assisted  at  the  burial  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  nearly 
seventeen  years  ago."  The  Sun  continued: 

About  forty  or  fifty  persons  were  assembled  at  the  grave,  including 
relatives  and  friends  of  the  family,  the  larger  portion  being  ladies.  .  .  . 
The  Rev.  Fleming  James,  assistant  minister  at  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  New 
York,  robed  in  gown  and  surplice,  officiated,  standing  at  the  head  of 
the  grave  and  reading  the  simple  and  beautiful  service  of  the  dead 
according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  .  .  .  The 
family  seemed  to  feel  keenly  the  grief  of  the  occasion,  and  had  the  heart- 
felt sympathy  of  those  present.118 

Mary  Ann  Booth  was  there,  with  Rosalie,  Edwin,  and  Junius. 
Asia  had  departed  with  her  husband  to  England,  where  she  was  to 
end  her  days.  Norval  E.  Foard  was  present  and  saw  the  burial  in 
a  grave  at  the  rear  of  the  elder  Booth's  obelisk.  "There  was  no 
question  of  the  fact  then,"  said  Foard  in  1903,  "nor  is  there  any 
room  for  doubt  now  that  the  remains  .  .  .  buried  in  Greenmount 
Cemetery  under  the  conditions  I  have  described  were  those  of 
John  Wilkes  Booth."  119  The  stub  from  the  record  book  of  John 
H.  Weaver  (who  knew  John  Booth  and  helped  to  identify  the 
body)  has  this  straightforward  entry:120 

No.  560 

Baltimore,  Feby  18th,  1869 
Body  of  J  Wilks  Booth 
Taken  out  June  26th  1869 

Aged  27  years 

|8.oo 
Paid 

Disease 

117  June  28;  p.  1. 

118  See  also  the  New  York  Times,  June  28;  p.  1,  and  New  York  Commercial  Ad- 
vertiser or  Sun  of  that  date. 

119  Baltimore  Sun,  June  4,  1903;  p.  12.  Henry  W.  Mears,  who  directed  a  number  of 
burials  in  the  lot,  confirmed  the  statement  as  to  John's  grave. 

120  In  a  fragment  of  the  book,  among  the  Nolen  Lincolniana  of  the  Harvard  Col- 
lege Library. 


3i6  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

The  dust  of  three  infant  children  (Frederick,  Elizabeth,  Mary 
Ann),  recently  disinterred  at  the  Belair  farm,  was  lowered  in  one 
small  coffin  into  the  grave  with  John.  Their  names  were  cut  below 
his  on  the  white  shaft;  and  Henry  Byron's  name  was  placed  there, 
too,  although  he  had  been  buried  at  Pentonville  in  England.121 
The  Sun  found  the  new  burial-place  to  be  in  a  very  "eligible" 
spot,  "in  the  vale  near  the  spring,  to  the  right  of  the  chapel,  and 
within  easy  access  of  one  of  the  main  drives." 

John  Booth  when  living  had  brought  trouble  to  many,  and  now 
this  service  in  Green  Mount,  as  Norval  Foard  remarked,  "brought 
trouble  to  the  minister."  The  Rev.  Fleming  James  had  been  ad- 
mitted to  deacon's  orders  in  Virginia  in  1868,  and  in  1869  was 
assistant  to  the  Rev.  William  A.  Muhlenberg,  superintendent  and 
pastor  of  St.  Luke's  Hospital  in  New  York.122  At  the  time  of  the 
Booth  obsequies,  he  had  been  visiting  his  friend  the  Rev.  Thomas 
U.  Dudley,  rector  of  Christ  Church.  Upon  his  return  to  New  York, 
he  learned  that  officials  of  the  hospital  were  (to  quote  Foard) 
"shocked  that  he  gave  Christian  burial  to  the  assassin  of  the  Presi- 
dent." The  following  open  letter  from  the  Rev.  Mr.  James  ap- 
peared in  the  New  York  Times:123 

A  CARD. 

Finding  that  my  officiating  at  the  reinterment  of  the  remains  of 
J.  Wilkes  Booth,  as  reported  in  the  public  prints,  has  given  great 
offence  to  the  authorities  and  others  of  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  in  which  I 
have  been  assistant  to  the  pastor,  I  beg  publicly  to  offer  a  few  words  of 
explanation. 

I  happened  to  be  in  Baltimore,  and  was  at  the  house  of  a  brother 
clergyman,  when  he  was  suddenly  called  upon  to  read  the  burial  service 
on  the  above-named  occasion.  As  he  was  just  going  out  of  town,  he  re- 
quested me  to  do  it  for  him.  I  consented,  having  but  a  few  moments 
for  reflection,  and  seeing  no  good  reason  for  refusing.  Had  I  imagined 
that  my  action  would  have  been  followed  by  such  unpleasant  conse- 
quences here,  I  should  have  felt  bound  to  consult  my  duty  to  the  hos- 
pital rather  than  to  a  strange  parish.  I  regret  I  did  not  foresee  this,  and 

121  This  presumably  is  why  the  Green  Mount  records  have  "six  bodies"  instead 
of  five,  as  removed  from  elsewhere. 

122  Spokesmen  for  the  hospital  and  for  the  registrar's  office  of  the  Diocese  of  New 
York  informed  the  present  writer  that  their  files  contained  no  reference  to  James. 

-July  2;  p.  5. 


THIS  WAS  HE  317 

will  only  add  that  my  Southern  feelings  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
matter.  I  acted  wholly  from  a  sense  of  duty  at  the  time.  I  need  scarcely 
say  that  I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  assassination  of  which  the  de- 
ceased was  guilty. 

I  leave  the  hospital  with  the  best  wishes  for  its  continued  prosperity, 
and  with  the  satisfaction  of  knowing,  as  the  venerable  pastor  allows  me 
to  say,  that  my  services  have  been  acceptable,  and  that  I  enjoyed  the 
affectionate  esteem  of  the  household. 

(Signed,)  FLEMING  JAMES. 
New- York,  June  30,  1869. 

Forced  to  resign  his  post  in  New  York,  the  Rev.  Mr.  James  was 
for  a  time  assistant  to  the  Rev.  A.  M.  Randolph  at  Emmanuel 
Church  in  Baltimore,  and  later  was  chosen  rector  of  St.  Mark's, 
to  succeed  the  Rev.  H.  H.  Hewitt.  He  brought  letters  dismissory 
from  Virginia,  where  he  had  been  admitted  to  priest's  orders. 
Subsequently  he  held  professorships  in  theological  schools  at  Gam- 
bier,  Ohio,  and  in  Philadelphia.124  It  is  gratifying  to  know  that 
this  liberal  and  honest  young  minister's  career  of  usefulness  was 
not  seriously  interrupted  by  an  episode  in  which  he  figured  to 
such  advantage.  Note  should  also  be  made  of  the  fact  that  the 
Episcopal  service  had  been  read  over  the  body  of  David  E.  Herold 
in  Washington  on  February  15th  by  the  Rev.  J.  Vaughn  Lewis  of 
St.  John's  Church,  often  styled  "the  President's  church"  because 
many  a  President  had  worshiped  there. 

We  should  naturally  assume  that  the  Fords  could  not  have  been 
imposed  upon,  that  John  T.  Ford  would  not  have  attempted  to 
delude  his  friend  Edwin  Booth,  and  that  Fords  and  Booths  would 
not  have  been  parties  to  a  mock  burial.  Knowing  also  that  John 
Booth's  corpse  had  been  identified  four  several  times  and  with 
an  uncommon  thoroughness  for  which  some  evidence  already  has 
been  offered  in  these  pages,  we  may  justly  conclude  that  no  basis 
exists  in  fact  for  the  persistent  story  that  the  interment  in  Green 
Mount  on  June  26th,  1869,  "was  not  that  of  the  assassin,  but  that 
of  another  man  forwarded  to  Baltimore  by  the  Government." 

In  his  later  years,  when  living  on  a  farm  near  Fairhaven  in  Anne 

134  Journals  of  the  Council  in  Virginia  and  of  the  Maryland  Convention  (Prot- 
estant Episcopal  Church).  Statement  of  Dr.  Fleming  James,  New  Haven,  for  the 
present  writer.  Baltimore  Sun,  June  5,  1903;  p.  7. 


318  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Arundel  County  (Maryland),  Samuel  Arnold  stated  he  knew  posi- 
tively that  John's  body  rested  in  Green  Mount.125  Though  Arnold 
had  not  reached  home  until  April  6th,  1869,  members  of  his  fam- 
ily and  of  O'Laughlin's  presumably  had  viewed  the  body  as  it  lay 
in  Weaver's  back  room  from  the  evening  of  February  15th  until 
the  morning  of  the  18th;  and  both  families  had  known  John 
Booth.  From  a  highly  trustworthy  private  source  the  present  writer 
has  learned  that  Dr.  J.  A.  Booth  "on  several  occasions"  declared 
that  the  body  in  Green  Mount  was  without  question  his  brother's. 

Henry  W.  Mears,  who  afterward,  as  a  funeral  director,  occupied 
the  premises  that  Weaver  had  used  and  who  vigorously  scouted 
the  notion  that  the  body  might  have  been  fraudulent,  gave  a 
clue126  as  to  how  gossip  in  Baltimore  may  have  borne  a  part  in 
spreading  that  notion.  A  few  men,  some  of  whom  had  been  officers 
in  the  Confederate  service,  expressed  distrust;  partly,  it  may  be, 
from  the  circumstance  that  the  body,  as  delivered  in  Baltimore, 
was  enveloped  in  an  army  blanket  and  wore  on  one  foot  a  coarse 
shoe  described  as  an  army  brogan;  partly,  we  may  assume,  because 
they  were  not  unwilling  to  bring  reproach  upon  a  Yankee  War 
Department.  At  the  North  there  had  been  grisly  talk  of  Union 
soldiers'  bones  crushed  to  make  fertilizer  for  the  South,  of  their 
skulls  wrought  into  drinking  cups  and  displayed  as  trophies;  and 
Southerners  had  told  gruesome  anecdotes  of  contractors  utilizing 
skeletons  of  mules  to  fill  out  shipments  of  coffins  sent  to  Northern 
communities  by  the  authorities  in  Washington.  Why  suppose  that 
those  authorities  would  be  punctilious  about  the  body  of  Lin- 
coln's murderer? 

From  time  to  time  the  stubborn  myth  received  fresh  accre- 
tions. Thus  John  Parshall  (who  died  in  Indianapolis  in  1897)  con- 
fided that  he  was  one  of  six  to  whom  the  final  disposition  of  the 
body  had  been  entrusted.  He  was  the  last  of  the  band,  he  said; 
and  like  the  others  he  passed  on  and  kept  the  mystery  unre- 
vealed.127  A  Capt.  E.  W.  Hillard  of  Metropolis,  Illinois,  alleged 
that  he  was  one  of  four  privates  who  carried  the  remains  from  the 
Old  Capitol  prison  to  a  gunboat  that  conveyed  them  about  ten 

125  Baltimore  correspondence  of  the  Boston  Herald,  dated  Mar.  7,  1903    (John  T. 
Ford  Papers). 

126  In  his  statement  for  the  present  writer. 

127  New  York  Times,  Mar.  18,  1897. 


THIS  WAS  HE  319 

miles  down  the  Potomac,  where  they  were  sunk.  Captain  Hillard's 
romancing  stirred  Henry  W.  Mears  to  emphatic  denial.128 

Another  military  gentleman,  Col.  James  H.  Davidson  of  Chi- 
cago, termed  chief  of  the  122nd  Infantry  during  the  Civil  War, 
said  he  was  in  command  at  Portsmouth,  Virginia,  when  a  report 
was  brought  to  him  about  "a  group  of  men"  behaving  strangely 
during  the  night  "around  one  of  the  warehouses."  Next  morning 
Col.  L.  C.  Baker  sought  an  interview  with  him. 

"Last  night,"  Baker  informed  him,  "I  brought  into  Portsmouth 
the  body  of  Booth.  Six  of  my  men  carried  it  on  a  stretcher  to  the 
first  warehouse  to  the  north.  We  took  it  into  the  basement,  where 
we  dug  a  grave.  The  body  was  placed  in  there  and  covered  with 
acid.  Then  the  grave  was  filled  with  limestone  and  dirt.  Every 
man  of  us  is  pledged  to  secrecy.  Will  you  promise  never  to  say  a 
word?" 

"That,"  Colonel  Davidson  reflected,  "was  sixty  years  ago.  There 
can't  be  any  harm  in  telling  it  now.  The  country  ought  to 
know."  129 

In  volubility  these  all  were  outdone  by  Edwin  H.  Sampson  of 
Moline,  Illinois.  Sampson  recited  that  he  was  one  of  four  guards 
—Colonel  Baker's  men— protecting  Lincoln  at  Ford's  Theatre  on 
the  night  of  April  14th.  (Lincoln  "sat  in  a  box  and  we  went  into 
the  parquet.")  He  was  also  at  Garrett's,  where  Booth  was  killed  by 
a  volley  fired  into  the  barn  as  ordered  by  Colonel  Baker.  He  con- 
tinued: 

On  the  night  of  April  24P]  the  Secretary  of  War  told  Col.  Baker  to 
take  one  man  and  dispose  of  the  body  between  daylight  and  dark.  Col. 
Baker  ordered  me  to  go  with  him.  Between  the  hours  of  1  and  3  Col. 
Baker  and  I  disposed  of  the  remains  of  John  Wilkes  Booth.  We  left  in 
darkness  and  returned  in  darkness.  I  can  swear  that  no  other  man 
knows  where  we  went.  And  I  can  swear  that  no  man  ever  will  know. 
I  have  kept  the  secret  and  I  will  die  with  it  in  my  heart.130 

It  was  said  that  Sampson  (who  claimed  to  have  been  a  sergeant 
in  the  First  United  States  Cavalry)  once  gave  at  Rock  Island  an 
address  in  which  he  declared  that  he  alone  knew  where  John 
Booth's  grave  was.  One  Houston  Booth  of  Galesburg  (who  main- 

128  New  York  Sun,  Jan.  13,  1903. 

129  Herald  Tribune   (New  York),  Feb.  22,  1922. 

130  New  York  World,  Mar.  8,  1925. 


320  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

tained  he  was  a  cousin  of  John's)  subsequently  disputed  this  and 
announced  his  positive  knowledge  that  John,  having  outwitted 
his  pursuers,  escaped  to  Oklahoma,  and  there  died  of  old  age. 

The  obvious  impossibility  of  reconciling  any  two  of  these  var- 
ious accounts  by  no  means  discouraged  the  myth-fanciers,  who 
rallied  around  the  time-worn  adage  concerning  smoke  and  fire. 
The  fire  in  this  case  was  not  the  flame  of  truth.  Minor  fictions, 
however  inconsistent,  were  welcomed— such  as  that  of  a  midnight 
burial  in  Green  Mount.  According  to  one  version,131  the  body  did 
not  arrive  in  Baltimore  until  noon  of  February  17th,  1869;  was 
taken  from  Weavers'  the  next  evening  at  exactly  eleven-forty-five; 
and  was  buried  in  Green  Mount  at  "the  very  witching  time  of 
night."  Oddly  enough,  the  centennial  book  issued  by  the  proprie- 
tors of  Green  Mount  has  it  that  the  removal  from  Washington  and 
the  interment  in  Green  Mount  were  "accomplished  secretly."  So 
far  as  Baltimore  was  concerned,  the  removal  turned  out  to  be,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  rather  public  affair.  As  for  the  interment,  the  Balti- 
more Sun  on  Saturday,  June  19th,  1869,  proclaimed  that  "the 
body  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth  will  be  buried  during  the  latter  part  of 
next  week"  (it  was  buried  on  the  afternoon  of  Saturday,  the  26th), 
and  on  Monday  the  28th  reported  the  interment  at  considerable 
length,  noting  that  about  "forty  or  fifty  persons  were  assembled." 
The  rites  were  hardly  clandestine,  to  say  the  least. 

The  story  of  burial  by  proxy  is  of  a  more  or  less  stereotyped 
and  familiar  pattern.  Rumors  had  started  in  much  the  same  way 
in  1825  as  to  Alexander  the  First  of  Russia.  It  was  said  he  had 
not  died  in  that  year  at  Taganrog  in  the  Crimea;  that  a  soldier 
who  resembled  him  and  conveniently  had  just  died  was  placed  in 
the  Tsar's  coffin  (or,  as  another  version  ran,  one  of  the  monarch's 
couriers  was  killed  for  the  purpose);  and  that  a  hermit  who  lived 
at  Tomsk  in  Siberia  and  died  there  as  late  as  1864  was  really  the 
Emperor.  So,  too,  years  later,  rumors  were  current  that  the  body 
laid  away  in  the  gloomy  Habsburg  crypt  in  1889  was  not  the 
Archduke  Rudolf's. 

When  the  Rev.  Fleming  James  read  the  committal  service  for 
John  Booth  on  that  summer  day  of   1869,  the  beautiful  little 

131  New  York  Times,  Feb.  26,  1911. 


THIS  WAS  HE  321 

Gothic  mortuary  chapel,  with  its  pinnacles,  topped  the  hill  from 
which  those  acres  derived  their  name;  but  the  city  had  not  yet 
encroached  on  the  place,  and  at  that  distance  the  city's  voices  were 
faint.  As  years  passed,  men  and  women  of  distinction  were  re- 
ceived at  Green  Mount— Elizabeth  Patterson,  wedded  in  1803  to 
Jerome  Bonaparte,  whom  his  brother  Napoleon  made  the  puppet 
king  of  a  counterfeit  realm;  Harriet  Johnston,  who  as  Harriet 
Lane  had  queened  it  at  the  President's  House  in  the  term  of  her 
uncle,  James  Buchanan;  Sidney  Lanier,  who  had  fought  for  the 
South  but  whose  poetry  won  national  recognition;  John  McDon- 
ogh,  who  planned  to  free  slaves;  John  E.  Owens,  the  favorite 
comedian,  immensely  popular  as  Solon  Shingle  in  J.  S.  Jones' 
"The  People's  Lawyer";  Gen.  J.  E.  Johnston  of  the  Confederate 
army,  who  put  his  name  to  final  articles  of  surrender  on  the  day 
when  John  Booth  was  killed.  But  it  may  truly  be  said  that  no 
other  spot  within  these  boundaries  has  ever  held  such  general  in- 
terest as  has  that  known  officially  as  "lots  9  and  10,  'Dogwood' 
area." 

Henry  Mears,  after  he  had  taken  charge  of  it,  once  discussed 
with  Edwin  Booth  some  proposed  changes. 

At  length,  "How  about  John's  grave?"  asked  John's  former  play- 
mate and  friend. 

"Leave  that  as  it  is,"  was  Edwin's  answer. 

So  it  was  left,  with  no  headstone  or  "marker"  to  denote  the 
exact  spot.  Only  in  that  sense,  however,  was  the  grave  "un- 
marked." Col.  Frank  Burr,  writing  in  the  Philadelphia  Inquirer 
in  1881,132  referred  not  only  to  an  ivy-covered  mound  where  the 
elder  Booth  lay  but  also  to  "a  second  ivy-covered  mound,"  with  a 
rosebush  on  it,  at  the  rear  of  the  monument.  (Richard  Booth's 
grave  had  a  flat  slab  of  its  own.)  As  late  as  1889,133  this  mound 
would  appear  to  have  been  there.  At  some  time  after  that  the  ivy 
disappeared  and  the  ground  was  leveled. 

The  interment  of  John  Booth  was  without  trickery  or  stealth, 
but  no  barriers  of  evidence,  no  limits  of  reason  ever  halted  the 
Great  American  Myth.  It  has  often  enough  been  whispered  that 

133  Dec.  4;  p.  1. 

133  By  that  time,  the  graves  of  Asia  and  Rosalie,  each  with  an  ivied  mound,  were 
in  the  lot.  Mary  Ann  Booth  (d.  1885)  was  placed  in  the  same  grave  as  her  hus- 
band. 


322  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

in  the  mausoleum  at  Springfield  the  coffin  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
is  empty. 

Among  the  records  of  the  War  Department  is  a  statement  by 
Junius  Booth  in  April  1865,  containing  these  words: 

Saw  his  brother  in  Washington  in  February  last  and  was  told  by  him 
that  he  had  played  there  one  night,  in  borrowed  clothes,134  having  pre- 
viously shipped  his  Theatrical  Wardrobe  to  the  South,  while  in  Can- 
ada, and  had  otherwise  disposed  of  much  of  his  property,  intending  in 
the  future,  to  reside  and  play  in  the  South:  but  the  vessel  containing 
his  property  having  been  sunk  by  a  gun  boat,  had  changed  his  purpose, 
and  induced  him  to  devote  his  attention  to  the  Oil  business,  in  which 
he  expected  to  be  quite  successful. 

It  had  indeed  been  thought  that  the  schooner  in  which  the  ward- 
robe was  shipped  to  Nassau  had  been  sunk  by  a  Federal  cruiser;135 
but  on  June  6th  the  Quebec  Mercury  printed  an  item  to  the  ef- 
fect that  by  virtue  of  a  commission  of  inspection  obtained  from 
the  Vice-Admiralty  Court  on  behalf  of  the  United  States  consul 
at  Quebec,  three  trunks  had  been  brought  to  Quebec  from  below 
Bic.  They  were  John  Booth's  trunks,  which  during  the  previous 
fall  had  been  shipped  from  Montreal  for  Nassau  and  were  des- 
tined for  Richmond.  The  schooner  had,  however,  been  wrecked, 
the  account  said;  and  the  trunks  had  been  taken  to  Bic  by  the 
salvors.  What  has  been  described  as  an  extensive  and  costly  theatri- 
cal wardrobe  was  found  to  have  been  almost  completely  ruined  by 
salt  water.  Besides  the  wardrobe,  there  were  also  letters  and  papers 
of  John's.136 

Garrie  Davidson,  Edwin  Booth's  personal  attendant  at  Booth's 
Theatre,  once  told  Otis  Skinner  how  after  a  performance  early 
in  1873  Edwin  had  asked  to  be  wakened  at  three  the  next  morn- 
ing and  then  had  gone  up  to  his  rooms  over  the  stage.  At  three, 
Edwin  and  Garrie  descended  to  the  furnace  room,  where  stood  a 
large  trunk,  "like  a  packing  case."  In  this  were  costumes  of  John's 
—musty  but  still  handsome:  a  robe  for  Othello,  wrought  of  two 
East  Indian  shawls  so  fine  they  could  have  been  drawn  through  a 

134  This  was  on  Jan.  20,  1865,  when  he  played  Romeo  at  Avonia  Jones'  benefit  at 
Grover's. 

135  Daily  News  (New  York),  Apr.  27,  1865;  p.  5. 
130  See  the  New  York  Herald,  June  10,  1865. 


THIS  WAS  HE  323 

bracelet;  an  American  Indian  outfit,  with  a  photograph  of  John 
wearing  it— the  picture  dated  Richmond  1859-1860  ("I  guess  that 
was  Metamora,"  said  Garrie);  and  many  others— and  there  were 
daggers,  swords,  wigs,  and  a  pair  of  lady's  satin  dancing  slippers. 
Every  article  was  thrust  into  the  furnace,  while  Edwin  watched; 
then  the  trunk  itself  was  burned.137 

Writing  of  this  holocaust,  Skinner  called  it  "The  Last  of  John 
Wilkes  Booth"— but  it  was  hardly  that,  even  in  a  material  sense. 
Many  things  that  belonged  to  John  Booth  are  still  in  existence; 
and  his  strange,  disordered  spirit  lives  on  with  the  spirit  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

137  American  Magazine,  Nov.  1908;  pp.  73-77. 


Twelve      .      •         FALSE  colors  and  shapes 


HAD  there  been  no  Garrett's,  no  flame  in  the  night,  no  mooted 
bullet,  no  guarded  burial,  yet  a  survival  tale  of  some  kind  there 
doubtless  would  have  been,  since  Booth  returned  to  Washington 
City  as  a  bedraggled  corpse  fetched  by  silent  men  out  of  the  dark- 
ness that  hid  the  long  reaches  of  the  Potomac. 

In  the  New  York  Times  of  January  12th,  1867,  a  letter  from 
James  E.  Campbell  gave  some  color  to  the  rumor  that  it  was  not 
Booth's  corpse  that  was  brought  up  the  Potomac  in  the  night.  In 
a  Calcutta  hotel,  six  months  before,  Campbell  (so  he  wrote)  had 
heard  a  Bostonian  arguing  with  a  Southerner,  who  declared:  "I 
will  lay  a  wager  of  five  hundred  pounds  that  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
who  assassinated  President  Lincoln,  is  alive  and  in  good  health  at 
the  present  time;  and  agree  to  furnish  proof  of  it  within  six 
months."  Campbell  was  informed  that  the  Southerner  was  Lieut. 
William  Martin  Tolbert  of  the  Shenandoah,  a  Confederate  priva- 
teer which  had  ranged  the  South  Pacific.1 

Campbell's  narrative  was  reprinted  in  other  American  journals. 
Tolbert,  it  was  said,  had  learned  that  Booth  was  in  hiding  in 
Ceylon.  Apparently  no  effort  was  made  to  verify  the  story.2  No 
Tolbert  is  in  the  "Register  of  Officers  of  the  Confederate  States 
Navy";  nor  in  the  full  descriptive  list  of  the  Shenandoah's  officers, 
sent  from  England  to  the  American  press.3 

1  Times,  Jan.  12,  1867;  p.  8.  The  letter  was  dated  Jan.  10  at  New  York. 

2  See  Izola  Forrester's  "This  One  Mad  Act." 

3  The  Register  was  compiled  by  the  Office  of  Naval  Records  and  the  Library  of 

the  Navy  Department;  revised  ed.,  1931 The  descriptive  list  is  in  the  New  York 

Herald,  Nov.  21,  1865;  p.  5. 

324 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  325 

In  a  few  months  the  World  of  New  York  was  saying4  that  Booth 
"like  that  phantom  ship,  the  Flying  Dutchman,  is  from  time  to 
time,  reported  to  have  been  seen  in  propria  persona  in  various 
parts  of  the  world;  the  latest  story  being  that  he  is  now  the  captain 
of  a  pirate  vessel  and  the  terror  of  the  China  seas.  At  intervals  the 
press  informs  the  public  that  some  reliable  correspondents  have 
seen  the  notorious  assassin  in  Europe.  One  time  he  has  been  seen 
playing  rouge  et  noir  at  Baden  Baden;  another  at  the  opera  in 
Vienna.  One  positively  swears  that  he  saw  him  driving  in  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne  at  Paris.  And  another  is  equally  confident  that  he 
beheld  him  visiting  St.  Peter's  at  Rome." 

Much  more  detailed  was  the  story  that  appeared  in  the  Missouri 
Republican  of  St.  Louis  for  September  7th,  1873.  It  was  an  inter- 
view with  Carroll  Jackson  Donelson,  an  old  sailor  claiming  to  be 
"a  blood  relative  of  Andrew  Jackson  Donelson,  who  died  recently 
in  Memphis."  5 

After  service  in  the  Confederate  army,  C.  J.  Donelson  had 
shipped,  he  said,  as  first  mate  out  of  San  Francisco  for  Shanghai. 
On  reaching  the  Pelew  Islands  "near  the  tenth  parallel,"  6  he  and 
a  boat's  crew  went  ashore  in  search  of  water  and  discovered  six 
white  persons,  five  men  and  a  woman.  "The  first  one  that  advanced 
toward  me  and  held  out  his  hand,"  said  Donelson,  "was  John 
Wilkes  Booth.  There  was  no  mistaking  his  identity  as  I  had  been 
an  intimate  friend  of  his  in  Montgomery,  Ala.,  years  before." 

Donelson  promised  not  to  tell  "for  a  period  of  one  year"  that  he 
had  seen  Booth.  Of  his  own  party,  Booth  said,  none  knew  who  he 
was  save  the  "female."  "And  she  is  my  wife."  For  thirty  days  after 
the  murder  he  had  been  in  Washington  City;  but  he  did  not  say 
where  he  had  hidden  or  how  he  got  out  of  the  country.  His  exten- 
sive wanderings  had  led  him  to  Mexico,  South  America,  Africa, 
Turkey,  Arabia,  Italy,  and  China.  At  Rome  he  met  John  H. 
Surratt.  In  China,  under  the  command  of  Frederick  Ward,  who 
organized  an  imperial  army  against  the  Taiping  rebels,  he  had 
fought  with  such  distinction  as  to  gain  the  favor  of  the  emperor 
himself. 

4  Aug.  17,  1867;  p.  8. 

6  A.  J.  Donelson  died  on  June  26,  1871. 

6  The  eighth  parallel  intersects  the  Pelews. 


326  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

In  Shanghai  he  joined  a  group  of  English  and  American  resi- 
dents and  naval  officers  in  an  amateur  dramatics  club.  Playing  the 
title  role  in  "Richard  III,"  he  stirred  such  enthusiasm  that  at  the 
clash  between  Richard  and  Richmond  in  the  final  scene  of  the  last 
act  the  audience  burst  into  frantic  applause.  High  above  the  din 
sounded  cries  of  "Booth!  Booth!"  Sword  in  air,  John  turned  to 
"glare  like  a  tiger"  at  the  house,  and  the  curtain  was  quickly  rung 
down. 

Next  day  Ward  put  at  Booth's  disposal  a  lorcha  and  crew,  and 
invited  him  to  be  gone.  He  had  headed  for  the  Carolines  but  put 
in  at  the  Pelews  under  stress  of  weather.  Some  time  afterward, 
Donelson  heard  that  the  lorcha  had  been  sighted  off  New  Guinea. 
John  had  given  Donelson  a  token  that  he  said  Edwin  Booth  would 
recognize.  The  St.  Louis  reporter,  who  saw  this  token,  described 
it  as  a  gold  medal  presented  to  the  elder  Booth  "by  the  citizens 
of  New  York." 

There  are  many  strange  things  in  this  narrative.  Why  did  the 
audience  shout  "Booth"?  Why  did  Frederick  Ward  bid  him  be- 
gone? Who  were  the  four  men  that  shared  the  fortunes  of  Booth 
—but  did  not  know  who  he  was? 

Booth  would  not  have  been  welcomed  by  John  H.  Surratt;  as 
late  as  1898  Surratt  said,  "Ah!  Wilkes  Booth.  I  loathe  him."  Out 
in  China,  Frederick  Townsend  Ward  died  in  battle  on  September 
21st,  1862— thirty  months  before  Lincoln's  assassination;  so  Donel- 
son's  Booth  could  not  have  served  in  Ward's  army  nor  been  or- 
dered by  Ward  to  quit  Shanghai. 

In  the  'eighties  another  Booth  was  found  in  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia. There,  some  twenty  years  previously,  young  J.  Wilkes  had 
made  friends  and  met  encouragement  as  an  actor.  In  Richmond 
from  1878  to  1884  lived  an  Episcopal  clergyman,  James  G.  Arm- 
strong. His  hair  was  flowing  and  dark— "black  as  a  raven's  wing." 
His  pulpit  style  was  highly  dramatic.  He  liked  the  theater  and 
took  an  interest  in  the  amateur  theatricals  organized  by  young 
people  of  his  church.  Slightly  lame,  he  walked  with  a  cane. 
Though  clean-shaven,  he  somewhat  resembled  John  Booth  in 
face  and  figure.  He  seemed  mildly  aware  of  the  resemblance,  and 
evidently  did  not  object  to  having  it  noticed  and  mentioned.  Ro- 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  327 

mantic  Southern  ladies  must  have  asked  one  another  in  subdued 
voices:  "What  do  you  really  think?" 

Armstrong  went  from  Richmond  to  Atlanta  in  1884.  In  1888  he 
quit  the  ministry  to  become  a  lecturer.  His  favorite  lectures  were 
said  to  be  on  Hamlet  and  Richard  III.  He  lived  until  1891.  A 
dozen  years  after  his  death  the  New  York  Herald  investigated  his 
early  history.7 

There  was  no  mystery  about  his  career.  He  had  prepared  for  the 
ministry  of  the  United  Presbyterian  Church  at  Xenia  (Ohio) 
Theological  Seminary.  From  1859  to  1863  he  preached  at  Sidney 
(Shelby  County),  Ohio.  Then  he  joined  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  was  ordained  in  that  body,  and  was  rector  successively  at 
Palmyra,  Missouri  (1871);  at  Hannibal,  Sam  Clemens'  home 
town  (1871-1874);  and  at  Wheeling,  West  Virginia  (1874-1878). 
From  Wheeling  he  went  to  Richmond. 

Records8  show  that  Armstrong,  born  at  Ballymena,  Ireland,  July 
24th,  1828,  was  ten  years  older  than  Booth;  that  he  was  a  graduate 
of  Queen's  College,  Belfast;  and  that  he  did  not  come  to  America 
until  1856.  The  Herald  considered  that  Armstrong  had  been  "af- 
fecting a  pose  in  permitting  the  rumors  about  him  to  be  circu- 
lated." 

In  spite  of  the  evidence  to  the  contrary,  there  are  many  stories 
that  Armstrong  was  Booth.  During  an  engagement  of  Edwin 
Booth  at  Atlanta,  Armstrong  was  in  a  stage  box.  When  these  two 
"looked  into  each  other's  eyes  across  the  footlights,"  many  in  the 
audience  "felt  the  play  pause."  At  one  o'clock  of  the  next  morning 
(this  story  adds)  Edwin  Booth  was  driven  "in  a  close  carriage"  to 
visit  Armstrong.  Defendant  in  an  ecclesiastical  trial  (ran  another 
anecdote),  Armstrong  was  asked,  "Are  you  John  Wilkes  Booth?" 
and  replied,  "I  am  on  trial  as  James  Armstrong,  not  as  John 
Wilkes  Booth."  But  (declared  a  third  account)  Armstrong  after  he 
had  left  the  ministry,  admonished  his  wife:  "Never  forget  that  you 
have  Wilkes  Booth  for  husband,  and  Lincoln's  blood  is  still  on 
his  hands."  9 

'Apr.  26,  1903;  literary  section,  pp.  1-2. 

"Supplied  by  the  Rev.  W.  G.  Moorehead,  president  of  Xenia  College,  who  knew 
Armstrong  personally. 

"While  at  Sidney  he  was  married  to  Miss  Alma  Hitchcock.  She  survived  him 
and  was  living  in  Atlanta  in  1903. 


328  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

One  day  a  stranger  in  Atlanta  was  standing  at  the  main  entrance 
to  the  Kimball  House  when  Armstrong  passed  by.  The  stranger 
raised  aloft  both  hands  and  cried,  "John  Wilkes  Booth,  as  I  live!" 
When  bystanders  told  him  the  man  he  had  seen  was  the  Rev. 
J.  G.  Armstrong,  the  venerable  stranger  said,  "That  may  be  the 
name  he  goes  by  here,  but  his  real  name  is  John  Wilkes  Booth." 

There  was  a  story  that  Armstrong  wore  his  hair  long  to  hide  a 
tell-tale  scar  on  the  back  of  his  neck.  This,  of  course,  was  the 
"mark  of  the  scalpel"— the  scar  "like  the  cicatrix  of  a  burn"— that 
John  Booth,  when  he  fled  in  1865,  was  known  to  have  carried. 
One  woman  alleged  that  Armstrong's  daughter— who,  though  she 
had  "dark  brown  hair  and  big  blue  gray  eyes,"  was  said  to  look 
like  the  Booths— never  wore  a  low-necked  gown  "except  with  a 
band  of  dark  plush  or  something  around  her  throat."  This  was,  of 
course,  to  hide  a  strawberry  mark  like  her  father's  scar! 

Out  of  the  hills  of  Morgan  county,  Tennessee,  from  the  little 
town  of  Wartburg,  abode  mainly  of  Germans  devoted  to  culture 
of  the  grape,  issued  in  1885  the  story  of  another  Booth.10  In  1866 
a  stranger  had  arrived  by  stage  at  Wartburg  and  put  up  at  the 
town's  one  hotel.  At  first  he  remained  aloof,  with  door  locked  and 
shutters  closed.  After  a  time,  under  the  name  Sinclair,  he  mingled 
with  the  village-folk,  but  he  was  still  a  mystery. 

Whenever  general  talk  turned  to  the  "late  unpleasantness,"  he 
would  abruptly  depart.  Once  he  searched  eagerly  and  long  for  a 
paper  he  had  accidentally  dropped.  This  was  found  by  somebody 
else  and  contained  an  account  of  the  murder  of  Lincoln.  When 
Sinclair  retrieved  it,  he  fell  ill.  In  delirium  he  cried  out  the  names 
Atzerodt,  Herold,  Paine,  Mudd,  and  Spangler,  and  let  slip  that 
his  own  name  was  rightly  Booth.  On  recovery  he  would  admit 
nothing. 

During  the  first  week  of  March  1885,  a  visitor  from  Fredericks- 
burg, Virginia,  was  in  Wartburg.  When  first  he  laid  eyes  on  Sin- 
clair, he  cried  out:  "Can  that  be  Erastus  Booth,  Wilkes  Booth's 
brother?  The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  in  Washington,  just  after 
Lincoln  was  assassinated."  Next  day  Sinclair  was  greeted  by  some 

10  New  York  Tribune,  Mar.  13;  p.  1. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  329 

hardy  individual  with,  "Hello,  Booth!"  He  paused,  recovered  him- 
self, passed  on.  But  that  night  he  disappeared  from  Wartburg  and 
its  vine-clad  slopes. 

Though  Sinclair  was  under  small-town  inspection  for  nineteen 
years,  personal  details  regarding  him  are  woefully  lacking.  There 
was  no  Booth  brother  named  Erastus.  The  Booth  brother  in  Wash- 
ington "just  after  Lincoln  was  assassinated"  was  Junius  Brutus 
Booth  II,  who  was  imprisoned  there.  Perhaps  the  "creator"  of  the 
story  confused  Brutus  and  Erastus! 

In  1898,  the  newspapers  were  printing  vague  stories  of  a  wan- 
derer in  Brazil  who  was  thought  by  many  to  be  John  Booth.  Mrs. 
J.  M.  Christ  of  Beloit,  Wisconsin,  told  a  representative  of  the 
Beloit  Daily  News:  "John  Wilkes  Booth  is  not  living  in  Brazil 
under  an  assumed  name.  He  is  dead.  But  he  was  not  shot.  He  died 
a  natural  death  years  ago  in  England.  Men  are  often  afraid  that 
women  can't  keep  a  secret,  but  I  have  kept  that  one  for  long,  long 
years."  Her  story  was  that  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  her 
first  husband,  Thomas  Haggett,  was  skipper  of  the  Mary  Porter,  a 
schooner  of  800  tons  burden.  When  their  house  in  New  Orleans 
was  sacked  by  Union  troops,  she  made  her  home  aboard  the  Mary 
Porter.  Three  times  the  schooner  ran  the  blockade  at  Wilmington 
with  contraband. 

In  June  1865,  a  little  over  two  months  after  Lincoln's  murder, 
the  Mary  Porter  was  at  Havana,  loading  sugar  for  Nassau.  There 
two  men  came  aboard— evidently  persons  of  distinction,  for  Cap- 
tain Haggett  told  his  wife  she  must  let  them  have  her  stateroom. 
On  the  third  day  out,  he  "very  impressively"  informed  her  that 
the  passengers  were  "Ralph  Semmes,  of  Alabama  fame"— and  John 
Wilkes  Booth. 

It  was  strange  that  she  had  not  recognized  John  Booth,  for  she 
said  that  in  New  York  she  had  known  him  well,  also  Edwin  and 
Junius  Brutus  the  elder.  But  she  explained  that  he  was  "haggard 
and  emaciated,  suffering  under  a  mental  strain  as  well  as  from  the 
broken  leg  that  had  had  little  treatment  and  no  rest."  And  of 
course  she  believed  that  he  was  dead.  "He  still  limped,"  she  said, 
"and  I  suppose  he  limped  until  the  day  he  died."  Captain  Hag- 


330  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

gett  told  her  that  Booth,  after  having  his  leg  set,  went  overland 
to  the  coast  of  Florida,  got  to  Key  West,  and  from  there  made 
Havana  in  a  little  sailboat. 

Though  John  behaved  in  "a  peculiar,  moody  manner"  and 
"seemed  to  be  remorseful,"  Mrs.  Christ,  who  said  she  had  known 
many  actors,  did  not  think  him  any  queerer  than  the  others.  She 
made  no  difficulty  about  being  hostess  to  him— she  was  herself  "in 
a  measure  embittered"  against  the  North. 

Displaying  "a  large  diamond  in  a  gold  setting"  engraved  with 
Booth's  initials,  she  declared  proudly,  "That  is  a  little  piece  of 
property  that  I  wouldn't  take  a  great  deal  for."  Booth,  she  said, 
had  given  it  to  her  when  he  left  the  Mary  Porter  in  Nassau  harbor 
—"in  recognition  ...  of  the  inconveniences  I  had  subjected  myself 
to  for  his  comfort."  He  stayed  at  the  Victoria  Hotel,  and  during 
the  next  two  weeks  she  saw  him  a  number  of  times.  Semmes  and 
he  were  waiting  for  the  steamer  Wild  Pigeon,  loading  for  Eng- 
land. Of  his  death  there,  some  years  afterward,  she  heard  "through 
his  family." 

Mrs.  Christ  had  her  own  substitute  victim.  "John  Wilkes  Booth 
disappeared  from  history,"  she  said,  "at  Dr.  Mudd's  residence. 
The  man  who  was  shot  in  the  barn  was  undoubtedly  Booth's  ac- 
complice, Fox.  By  a  strange  coincidence  he  also  limped,  as  from 
a  broken  leg,  and  had  a  scar  upon  his  neck,  as  Booth  had.  .  .  .  To 
believe  that  Booth  died  in  that  burning  barn,  I  should  have  to 
reject  the  evidence  of  my  senses,  and  I  am  not  ready  to  do  that." 

But  there  is  strong  evidence  against  her  story.  For  one  thing,  in 
June  1865  Raphael  Semmes  of  the  Alabama  had  given  his  parole 
and  was  living  at  his  home  in  Mobile,  802  Government  Street, 
which  he  had  just  reached  in  May,  after  an  arduous  trip  from 
Richmond.  There  he  remained  until  his  arrest  in  the  following 
December.11  Secondly,  John  Booth  did  not  disappear  at  Dr.  Sam- 
uel Mudd's.  Thirdly,  no  conspirator  or  accomplice  named  Fox  is 
on  the  record. 

Mrs.  Christ's  anecdotes  of  the  Booths  were  sketchy  and  inac- 
curate. She  and  her  husband  were  "at  the  theater  which  burned 
during  a  play  by  the  Booths."  She  thought  the  play  was  "Hamlet." 

"Semmes,  "Memoirs  of  Service  Afloat";  p.  823.  W.  A.  Roberts,  "Semmes  of  the 
Alabama";  pp.  243-245. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  331 

John  "came  before  the  curtain  and  announced  that  for  reasons  he 
could  not  then  explain,  the  play  would  have  to  be  suspended." 
He  requested  the  audience  to  leave,  promising  that  the  box-office 
would  refund  all  money.  "At  that  moment  the  stage  was  burning, 
and  it  was  only  Booth's  self-possession  that  averted  a  panic."  But 
in  fact  the  three  Booths— Edwin,  John,  and  Junius  Brutus  II— 
appeared  together  only  once,  at  the  Winter  Garden,  New  York, 
on  November  25th,  1864,  in  "Julius  Caesar."  It  was  Edwin  who 
came  before  the  curtain.  The  fire  was  in  the  Lafarge  House,  next 
door.  The  audience  was  soon  quieted,  and  the  play  continued. 
Had  Mrs.  Christ  known  John,  she  would  hardly  have  confused 
him  with  Edwin,  or  got  so  many  details  wrong. 

The  very  next  day  after  Mrs.  Christ's  story  appeared  in  the 
Beloit  News,  a  fellow  townsman  of  hers  told  his  story  of  Booth's 
escape.12  Wilson  D.  Kenzie  said  that  as  a  member  of  company  F, 
First  U.  S.  Artillery,  he  had  been  stationed  at  New  Orleans  dur- 
ing the  winter  of  1862-1863.  There  he  became  "thoroughly  ac- 
quainted" with  John  Booth,  who  was  passing  the  winter  in  that 
city  and  who  frequently  visited  the  army  quarters.  In  Kenzie's 
company  was  a  private  named  Zisjen,  who  knew  of  Kenzie's  ac- 
quaintance with  Booth. 

In  April  1865  the  company  was  at  Arlington  Heights,  just  across 
the  river  from  Washington.  "Zisjen's  term  in  the  regular  army 
having  expired,  he  re-enlisted  in  the  volunteers,  in  a  company 
commanded  by  Boston  Corbett.  They  were  stationed  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  us."  Kenzie  was  at  the  play  in  Ford's  on  that  night 
of  April  14th.  When  a  great  shout  went  up  that  Lincoln  had  been 
srfot,  he  ran  to  get  his  horse  and  dashed  for  the  Heights.  He  noti- 
fied his  commanding  officer,  Lieutenant  Norris,  and  the  company 
was  quickly  in  the  saddle,  ready  for  duty. 

"We  received  no  orders,  however,  until  next  morning,  when  we 
were  commanded  to  reconnoitre  around  the  outskirts.  We  finally 
brought  up  at  the  barn  around  which  so  much  interest  has  cen- 
tered, and  there  saw  Corbett's  command.  Zisjen  ran  toward  me, 
exclaiming,  'Kenzie,  Corbett  has  killed  a  man  who  he  says  is 
Booth.  Come  and  see.'  "  Kenzie  dismounted  and  looked  down  at 

"Beloit  Daily  News,  Apr.  20,  1898;  p.  3. 


332  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

the  man's  face.  "I  had  never  seen  the  man  before.  It  was  not  Booth 
nor  did  it  resemble  him  and  I  said  so.  Corbett  overheard  my  re- 
mark and  was  much  displeased.  Lieut.  Norris  told  me  to  keep 
still.  In  fact,  I  received  very  distinct  orders  to  thereafter  keep  my 
mouth  shut." 

The  man  in  the  barn,  Kenzie  said,  had  already  surrendered 
when  Corbett  shot  him.  Zisjen  called  Corbett  "coward"  and  "cur" 
—which  "would  have  been  serious  for  Zisjen  had  he  been  in  the 
regular  army."  Kenzie  said:  "The  government  never  paid  a  dollar 
of  the  big  reward  it  offered  for  Booth's  capture." 

Wasn't  it  hard  to  doubt  Kenzie?  There,  on  the  wall  in  the  room 
of  the  interview,  hung  his  sword;  and  he  had  (so  he  said)  been 
on  guard  over  Lincoln's  body  as  it  lay  in  state  in  the  White  House. 
But  what  were  the  facts? 

Joseph  Zisgen  (not  Zisjen)  was  present  at  the  capture  of  Herold 
and  Booth— one  of  seventeen  privates  of  the  Sixteenth  New  York 
Cavalry  who  were.  The  detachment  also  included  seven  cor- 
porals and  two  sergeants— one  of  them  Boston  Corbett.  The  officer 
in  immediate  command  of  the  detachment  was  Lieut.  Edward  P. 
Doherty.  No  other  military  unit  whatever  had  part  in  the  capture 
or  was  at  Garrett's  that  day.  These  men,  all  of  whose  names  are  of 
record,  were  ordered  out  not  on  April  15th,  the  day  after  the  mur- 
der, but  on  April  24th.  It  is  impossible  that  Kenzie  could  have 
been  at  Garrett's.  Perhaps  he  did  not  even  know  where  the  barn 
was;  or  he  would  not  have  spoken  as  if  it  were  on  the  "outskirts" 
of  Washington.  Lastly,  John  Booth  did  not  spend  the  winter  of 
1862-1863  in  New  Orleans,  and  probably  Kenzie  did  not  know  him 
at  all. 

Kenzie  was  wrong  about  the  reward,  too.  It  was  fully  paid,  and 
Joseph  Zisgen  got  $1,653.85  as  his  share.  There  is  no  evidence, 
except  Kenzie's  word,  that  "the  man  in  the  barn"  had  surrendered 
before  he  was  shot;  but  evidence  that  he  had  not  is  abundant. 

By  1929  the  wanderer  had  turned  up  in  no  less  than  twenty 
different  guises,  according  to  a  count  said  to  have  been  carefully 
kept  by  Herbert  W.  Fay,  custodian  of  the  Lincoln  tomb  at  Spring- 
field.  Of  these  the  most  conspicuous  was  John  St.  Helen— thanks 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  333 

to  "Escape  and  Suicide  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,"  a  book  by  Finis  L. 
Bates,  an  attorney  of  Memphis,  Tennessee.13 
Of  Bates'  book  the  New  York  Herald  said: 

If  the  style  be  the  man,  then  one  must  premise  that  Mr.  Bates'  intel- 
ligence, attainments  and  taste,  as  revealed  through  this  medium,  are 
not  such  as  would  win  his  case  with  an  impartial  jury.  The  style  is  at 
once  slipshod  and  gaudy.  On  the  one  hand,  the  author  falls  into  such 
malapropisms  as  to  speak  of  his  hero's  'inimical  manner';  on  the  other 
he  soars  into  the  empyrean  on  the  wings  of  such  bathos  as  this: — 

"Then,  just  as  twilight  was  being  clasped  into  the  folds  of  night  by 
the  stars  of  a  cloudless  sky,  I  sought  seclusion  while  the  world  paused, 
lapped  in  the  universal  laws  of  rest,  and  entered  dreamland  on  that 
bark  of  sleep,  the  sister  ship  of  death,  pillowed  within  the  rainbow  of 
hope,  a  fancy  fed  by  the  air  castles  of  youth." 

Stuff  of  this  sort  prejudices  one  at  the  start.  The  story  Mr.  Bates  has 
to  tell  is  one  that  awakens  a  distrust  more  logical  than  mere  preju- 
dice. . . . 

Read  Bates'  "Escape,"  and  you  will  agree  that  the  Herald  was 
putting  it  mildly.  The  book  is  often  crude  to  the  verge  of  illiteracy. 
It  is  marked  throughout  by  wild  implausibilities,  by  ignorance, 
misstatement,  suppression,  evasion,  and  plain  disingenuousness. 
Yet  about  75,000  copies  are  thought  to  have  been  sold;  mainly 
in  the  South  and  Southwest.  Editors  chose  to  regard  it  as  "timely." 
It  entered  the  proceedings  of  historical  societies.  It  gave  new  life 
to  the  legend  that  Booth  had  survived  and  escaped. 

Harper's  Magazine  at  last  commissioned  William  G.  Shepherd, 
a  feature  writer,  "to  probe  the  evidence  to  a  conclusive  issue." 
The  account  of  Shepherd's  "remarkable  adventure  in  journalism" 
was  published  in  Harper's  for  November  1924.  "Through  several 
long  drowsy  summer  afternoons"  in  Memphis,  Bates,  "a  sturdy 
white-haired  Southern  lawyer,"  talked  to  Shepherd,  "in  soft 
Southern  dialect,"  and  Shepherd  "listened  enthralled."  14  Shep- 

"The  editio  princeps  (Memphis,  1907)  was  shortly  followed  by  others  (some  of 
them  issued  from  Parkersburg,  West  Virginia),  with  an  expanded  title  and  sev- 
eral additional  illustrations,  including  a  frontispiece  of  the  author. 

"According  to  Shepherd  (p.  705),  Bates  had  been  "a  state's  attorney  general." 
Similar  assertions  have  been  made  elsewhere — e.g.,  in  the  Herald  Tribune  (New 
York),  Dec.  17,  1931;  p.  13.  From  the  office  of  the  attorney-general  of  the  State 
of  Tennessee,  a  query  brought  this  reply:  "We  have  had  no  Attorney  General  of 
the  State  of  Tennessee  by  the  name  of  Finis  L.  Bates.  If  this  man  was  ever  At- 
torney General  in  this  State  he  possibly  held  the  office  of  District  Attorney  General." 


334  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

herd  "could  not  doubt  this  man's  sincerity"  and  accepted  at  face 
value  Bates'  description  of  "the  years  of  time  and  thousands  of 
dollars"  expended  "  'for  the  correction  of  history,  sir.'  "  He 
thought  that  John  St.  Helen's  yarn  (as  relayed  by  Bates)  "fitted  so 
plausibly  into  the  true  and  inner  account  of  the  movements  and 
experiences  of  the  assassin  of  Abraham  Lincoln."  Shepherd  was  a 
good  reporter— but  scarcely  an  expert  in  that  particular  field.  Yet 
even  the  better-informed  and  more  skeptical  Lloyd  Lewis  con- 
sidered that  Bates,  being  a  lawyer,  "marshaled  his  evidence 
cleverly";  and  that  he  was  probably  sincere.  Bates  lived  until 
Thanksgiving  Day  of  1923  and  devoted  much  of  his  time  to  col- 
lecting further  "evidence." 


2. 

Remember,  as  we  go  over  the  main  details  of  Bates'  story,  that 
there  are  two  versions  of  it:  one  in  his  book,  "Escape";  and  the 
other  in  Shepherd's  report,  as  printed  in  Harper's  Magazine  for 
November  1924. 

About  forty  miles  southwest  of  Fort  Worth,  Texas,  is  Granbury, 
county  seat  of  Hood  County.  In  the  spring  of  1872  Bates  was  prac- 
ticing law  there,  and  there  he  first  met  John  St.  Helen.  One  of 
Bates'  earliest  clients  had  been  indicted  for  running  a  saloon  with- 
out a  license  in  the  neighboring  hamlet  of  Glen  Rose.15  The  real 
culprit  was  St.  Helen.  He  admitted  his  guilt,  but  refused  to  attend 
court  in  behalf  of  the  defendant.  He  promised  Bates:  "I  shall  see 

you,   and   of  my   purpose   and   destiny   speak— until    then " 

"Then"  he  retained  Bates  as  counsel.16  "I  say  to  you,  as  my  at- 
torney, that  my  name  is  not  John  St.  Helen,  as  you  know  me  and 
suppose  me  to  be,  and  for  this  reason  I  cannot  afford  to  go  to  Tyler 
before  the  Federal  Court,  in  fear  that  my  true  identity  be  discov- 
ered, as  the  Federal  Courts  are  more  or  less  presided  over  in  the 
South  and  officered  by  persons  heretofore,  as  well  as  now,  con- 
nected with  the  Federal  Army  and  government,  and  the  risk  would 
be  too  great  for  me  to  take." 

15  Glen  Rose  was  in  Hood  County  until  1875,  when  Somervell  County  was  or- 
ganized from  Hood,  with  Glen  Rose  as  county  seat.  (E well's  "History."  Letter  of 
W.  E.  Porter,  Granbury.) 

""Escape,"  p.  13. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  335 

In  October  1872  St.  Helen  removed  his  liquor  business  to 
Granbury;  but  (says  Bates)  he  always  "appeared  to  have  more 
money  than  was  warranted  by  his  stock  in  trade"  and  he  employed 
his  ample  leisure  in  reciting  Shakespeare's  plays— with  special  pref- 
erence for  "Richard  III."  Bates  on  one  page  notes  of  St.  Helen 
that  "the  flashes  which  came  from  his  keen,  penetrating  black  eyes 
spoke  of  desperation  and  a  capacity  for  crime";  on  another  he 
refers  to  the  man's  "consummate  ease  of  manner  and  reassur- 
ing appearance."  He  alludes  to  St.  Helen's  "full,  clear  voice" 
and  "complete  knowledge  of  elocution"— to  the  recitations  that 
"charmed  the  ear  and  pleased  all  listeners";  but  he  also  says  that 
on  occasion  St.  Helen's  "breath  came  hard,  almost  to  a  wheeze" 
in  what  seemed  to  be  "a  bronchial  or  an  asthmatic  affliction  of  the 
throat  and  chest."  He  says  (in  the  book)  that  he  never  knew  of 
St.  Helen's  "taking  strong  drink  of  any  character,"  but  he  told 
Shepherd  that  St.  Helen  "drank  heavily." 

St.  Helen  was  (according  to  Bates)  a  handsome  fellow— a  man 
who  "entertained  you  to  mirth  or  to  tears";  thrilling  the  evening 
assemblies  of  Granbury  with  his  rendition  of  "Locksley  Hall,"  or 
"standing  in  graceful  poise"  at  his  own  bar,  "holding  his  left 
hand  well  extended"  and  declaiming: 

"Come  not  when  I  am  dead 
To  shed  thy  tears  around  my  head. 
Let  the  wind  sweep  and  the  plover  cry, 
But  thou,  O  fool  man,  go  by."  17 

He  showed  "intimacy  with  every  detail  of  theatrical  work." 
Periodicals  of  the  theater  lay  about  his  room  behind  the  saloon. 
The  comedian  Roland  Reed,  then  in  his  twenties,  played  a  brief 
engagement  at  Granbury.  Bates  and  St.  Helen  attended  all  the 
performances,  and  St.  Helen  invited  Bates  and  Reed  to  accompany 
him  on  a  morning  walk  to  view  the  Brazos  River  in  flood.  During 
the  walk  St.  Helen  launched  into  a  monologue  on  "the  highest 
class  of  acting,"  and  likened  one  of  Reed's  portrayals  to  "a  simple- 
ton attempting  to  impersonate  the  character  and  eccentricities  of 
an  idiot." 

Reading,  reciting,  sitting  in  at  "amusing  games  of  cards,"  St. 

17  A  sad  corruption  of  Tennyson. 


336  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Helen— according  to  Bates— was  a  "social  favorite,"  but  kept  at 
arm's  length  all  except  "a  select  few";  yet  "in  such  a  gentle  and 
respectful  way  that  no  affront  was  taken."  Bates  told  Shepherd: 
"He  turned  me  to  Shakespeare  and  to  Roman  history.  He  gave  me 
innumerable  lessons  in  oratory.  He  taught  me  what  to  do  with 
my  hands  and  feet  before  an  audience.  He  taught  me  gestures  and 
voice  inflection.  His  imitations  of  public  speakers  who  made 
errors  in  platform  manners  were  excruciatingly  funny."  18 

One  night  in  1877  Bates  was  hurriedly  called  to  St.  Helen's 
bedside.  In  his  book  he  says  that  St.  Helen  had  for  some  time  been 
gravely  ill;  but  he  told  Shepherd  that  St.  Helen's  drinking  bouts 
were  often  followed  by  "spells."  As  Shepherd  reports  Bates,  when 
the  doctor  left  the  room,  St.  Helen  said  to  Bates: 

"I  don't  believe  I  shall  live.  Reach  under  my  pillow  and  take 
out  a  picture  you'll  find  there."  Bates  found  under  the  pillow  a 
tintype— of  St.  Helen  himself. 

"If  I  don't  live,"  St.  Helen  continued,  "I  want  you,  as  my  law- 
yer, to  send  that  picture  to  Edwin  Booth,  in  New  York  City,  and 
tell  him  the  man  in  that  picture  is  dead.  Tell  him  how  I  died." 

So  Bates  promised.  Then  he  and  "the  Mexican  boy"  massaged 
St.  Helen  with  brandy.  By  morning  the  patient  was  better.19 

The  account  in  Bates'  book  is  more  explicit.  There  St.  Helen 
whispers: 

"I  am  dying.  My  name  is  John  Wilkes  Booth,  and  I  am  the 
assassin  of  President  Lincoln.  Get  the  picture  of  myself  from  under 
the  pillow.  I  leave  it  with  you  for  my  future  identification.  Notify 
my  brother  Edwin  Booth,  of  New  York  City." 

When,  after  "many  weeks,"  he  recovered,  he  asked  Bates,  "Do 
you  remember  anything  I  said  when  I  was  sick?"  "Many  things," 
answered  Bates;  and  St.  Helen  rejoined.  "Then  you  have  my  life 
in  your  keeping,  but,  thank  God,  as  my  attorney."  Later,  as  the 
two  men  sauntered  along  a  country  road  (so  Bates  told  Shepherd), 
St.  Helen  burst  out: 

"I  am  John  Wilkes  Booth.  I  am  the  man  who  killed  the  best 
man  that  ever  lived,  Abraham  Lincoln." 

Then  he  told  his  story.  In  the  book  it  is  drawn  out  to  much 

18  Harper's  Magazine,  Nov.  1924;  p.  707. 

19  lb.;  pp.  707-708. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  337 

greater  length  than  in  Shepherd's  report.  There  are  discrepancies, 
but  in  both  versions  Bates  is  scandalized,  incredulous,  doubtful 
whether  his  odd  client  is  wholly  responsible.  "And,"  he  writes,  "in 
our  after  association,  lasting  about  ten  months,  we  made  no  fur- 
ther reference  to  the  subject,  which  was  avoided  by  mutual  con- 
sent." For  a  time  (he  asserted)  he  thought  the  tintype  was  a 
portrait  of  "some  one  of  the  Herolds"— this  in  spite  of  his  own 
story  that  St.  Helen  claimed  to  be  Booth  and  had  said  this  very 
tintype  was  a  "picture  of  myself." 


When  Bates  had  settled  in  Memphis,  he  began  (he  said)  to  read 
whatever  he  could  find  about  Lincoln's  murder.  The  more  he 
read,  the  more  convinced  he  grew  that  John  St.  Helen  was  Wilkes 
Booth. 

He  traced  St.  Helen  to  Leadville,  Colorado,  thence  to  Fresno; 
and  was  "reasonably  sure"  that  he  "still  lived  and  could  be  lo- 
cated." On  January  17th,  1898,  he  wrote  to  Secretary  of  War 
Alger,  telling  him  that  he  was  "in  possession  of  such  facts  as  are 
conclusive  that  John  Wilkes  Booth  now  lives";  and  asking  whether 
the  "development"  of  this  news  would  be  "a  matter  of  any  im- 
portance" to  the  War  Department.  Bates'  letter  was  shortly  re- 
turned to  him  with  the  endorsement  by  G.  Norman  Lieber,  Judge 
Advocate  General:  "It  is  recommended  that  he  be  informed  that 
the  matter  is  of  no  importance  to  the  War  Department."  20  Bates 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  answer.  Might  not  the  officials  of  the 
War  Department  be  held  guilty  of  "assisting,  by  concealment,  the 
escape  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,"  and  thus  of  being  accessories  after 
the  fact? 

In  April  1900  a  letter  from  Bates  to  Secretary  John  Hay  brought 
this  reply: 

The  Secretary  of  State  requested  me  to  acknowledge  receipt  of  your 
favor  of  the  24th  of  April  and  to  thank  you  for  it. 

Very  respectfully, 
E.  J.  Babcock, 
Private  Secretary. 

20  The  original  is  pictured  in  Harper's  Magazine,  Nov.  1924;  p.  705. 


338  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

"This,"  comments  Bates,  "closed  my  efforts  at  presenting  the  mat- 
ter of  Booth's  discovery  to  the  government  of  the  United  States." 
He  determined  to  "appeal  to  the  American  people." 

On  the  13th  of  January  1903  the  News  and  the  Wave,  news- 
papers of  Enid,  Oklahoma  (then  a  town  of  some  3,500  people), 
announced  the  death  that  day  by  suicide  of  David  E.  George,  a 
rather  recent  arrival  from  El  Reno,  sixty-five  or  seventy  miles 
south.  Most  of  his  time  in  Enid  he  had  spent  in  Jack  Bernstein's 
saloon  or  hanging  about  the  drab  second-floor  office  of  the  Grand 
Avenue  Hotel,  where  he  roomed.  The  body  was  taken  to  W.  B. 
Penniman's  undertaking  parlors,  at  the  rear  of  his  furniture  shop. 
Thence  it  might  soon  have  gone  unclaimed  to  a  forlorn  grave; 
but  while  W.  H.  Ryan,  Penniman's  assistant,  was  "fixing  it  up," 
in  walked  a  Methodist  clergyman,  the  Rev.  E.  C.  Harper.  Harper 
took  one  look  and  cried  out: 

"Do  you  know  who  that  is?" 

"Why,"  said  Ryan  calmly,  "his  name  is  George." 

"No,  sir,  it  isn't,"  responded  the  Rev.  Mr.  Harper  firmly.  "That 
is  the  body  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  man  who  killed  Abraham 
Lincoln."  21 

Thereupon  the  Rev.  Mr.  Harper  told  how  George  had  "con- 
fessed" to  Mrs.  Harper  at  El  Reno  in  April  1900.  "Of  course  I 
took  special  pains  with  the  body  after  that,"  said  Ryan.  "I  did  the 
best  job  of  embalming  I've  ever  done.  If  it  was  Booth's  body,  I 
wanted  to  preserve  it  for  the  Washington  officials  when  they 
came." 

The  news  spread  through  the  press  of  the  West  and  South.  Finis 
L.  Bates  of  Memphis  read  the  story— presumably  in  the  Memphis 
Commercial- Appeal  for  Sunday,  January  18th,  1903,  under  the 
heading  "Wilkes  Booth  a  Suicide."  He  must  have  been  puzzled. 
What  if  this  Booth  was  not  his  Booth? 

He  telegraphed  to  Penniman,  asking  whether  he  might  see  the 
body.  But  he  did  not  reach  Enid  until  six  p.m.  of  the  23rd. 
His  coming,  he  says,  had  been  "awaited  with  great  anxiety  by  a 
large  and  much-excited  throng  of  people";  and  "old  Federal  sol- 

21  From  Shepherd's  interview  with  Ryan,  Harper's  Magazine,  Nov.  1924;  pp.  716- 
717. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  339 

diers"  were  darkly  believed  to  be  ready  to  "take  the  body  into  the 
streets  and  burn  it,  if  it  should  be  identified  as  that  of  John  Wilkes 
Booth."  (Penniman  said  flatly  of  Bates,  "His  book  account  of  all 
this  is  bunk.") 

Bates  went  to  Penniman's  on  the  24th,  looked  upon  the  body— 
and  wept.  "I  knew  him,"  he  writes  characteristically,  "as  instantly 
as  men  discern  night  from  day,  as  the  starlight  from  moonlight,  or 
the  moon  from  the  light  of  day."  Bates  carried  the  tintype  that 
John  St.  Helen  had  given  him.  He  produced  it,  calling  upon 
Penniman  and  Ryan  "to  bear  witness  with  me  to  the  identity  of 
this  dead  man  with  the  picture."  22 

Penniman  took  out  letters  of  administration  on  George's  "es- 
tate," which  included  the  body.  Bates  by  identifying  the  two 
claimants  as  one  and  the  same,  had  quieted  his  own  doubts.  Items 
from  Enid  were  welcomed  by  journals  of  Kansas  City  and  St. 
Louis.  The  New  York  Tribune  for  June  3rd,  1903,  reported: 

St.  Louis,  June  2. — A  dispatch  to  "The  Globe-Democrat"  from  Enid, 
Okla.,  says  that  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  the  actor  and  nephew  of  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin  of  President  Lincoln,  has  fully  identified 
the  remains  of  the  man  known  as  David  E.  George  as  his  uncle. 

The  dispatch  dated  George's  suicide  on  January  14th  (instead 
of  the  correct  date,  January  73 th),  and  said  that  he  left  a  letter 
directed  to  Bates— for  which  there  is  no  other  evidence.  "Mr.  Bates 
came  here  at  once,  and  fully  identified  the  body  as  that  of  John 
Wilkes  Booth";  and  he  had  later  obtained  positive  identifications 
"from  the  dead  man's  nephew,  and  from  Joseph  Jefferson,  Miss 
Clara  Morris  and  a  score  of  others  who  knew  him  in  his  early 
days."  "According  to  Mr.  Bates'  story,"  the  dispatch  added,  "he 
had  acted  as  Booth's  confidential  agent  and  attorney  for  nearly 
forty  years."  Many,  as  they  read,  were  convinced  that  St.  Helen- 
George  was  indeed  John  Booth;  and  with  the  introductory  for- 
mula "I  see  by  the  paper,"  they  spread  the  word  abroad. 

The  officials  from  Washington,  whom  Ryan  had  expected,  never 
came.  The  embalmed  corpse  of  the  suicide  was  unburied.  It  con- 
tinued on  display  in  Penniman's  rear  room.  Visiting  strangers 
were  taken  to  gaze  at  it.  Somebody  would  say,  "We'd  like  to  see 

22  "Escape";  pp.  254,  261-262,  274-275.  Already,  he  recounts,  "more  than  fifty 
thousand  men,  women,  and  children"  had  viewed  the  exhibitl 


340  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Booth's  body,  please."  Penniman  or  an  assistant  would  reply, 
"Certainly.  Go  right  on  back."  "That  back  room,"  mused  Ryan, 
"was  a  queer  place.  Almost  every  day  some  visitor  would  find 
something  new,  and  some  new  story  would  go  out." 

None  of  those  that  viewed  the  body  claimed  it.  Penniman,  in 
after  years  at  his  home  in  Columbus,  Ohio,  said  that  the  most 
unlikely  subjects  had  invariably  been  claimed  and  buried.  All 
but  George. 

After  some  years,  the  body  was  turned  over  to  Finis  Bates;  pre- 
sumably with  the  understanding  that  he  would  give  it  decent 
burial.  Instead  of  that,  Bates  stored  his  dear  old  friend  in  the  Bates 
garage  at  Memphis.  And  when  Bates  could,  he  rented  him  and 
leased  him  and  let  him  out  for  hire.  Small  fairs  and  cheap  side- 
shows proclaimed  him— with  acknowledgments  to  Bates.  Every 
now  and  then  Bates  tried  to  sell  him.  In  1920  he  offered  him  to 
Henry  Ford  for  $1,000— with  affidavits  and  "a  wealth  of  circum- 
stantial detail." 

4- 

Bates  did  not  make  notes  of  St.  Helen's  "confession"  at  the  time, 
but  thirty-five  years  afterward  he  published  it  verbatim.  The  story 
that  Bates  put  into  St.  Helen's  mouth  must  have  been  Bates'  own 
synthesis.  He  found  some  material  for  it  in  1897  m  a  reporter's 
interview  with  David  Dana,  in  the  Boston  Sunday  Globe  of  De- 
cember 12th,  1897.  This  feature  article  "He  Almost  Saved  Lin- 
coln" yielded  many  particulars  that  Bates  later  wove  into  his  book. 

In  1897  David  Dana,  then  seventy-one,  was  living  on  his  farm 
in  West  Lubec,  Maine.  He  had  taken  a  minor  part  in  the  chase 
after  Booth  into  Lower  Maryland.  At  the  Trial  of  the  Conspira- 
tors he  testified  that  he  arrived  in  Bryantown  about  one  p.m., 
Saturday,  April  15th,  1865;  apprised  the  villagers  of  Lincoln's 
murder;  told  them  he  knew  the  murderer  was  Booth,  "as  near 
as  a  person  could  know  anything."  Dr.  George  D.  Mudd  (a  sec- 
ond cousin  of  the  alleged  conspirator  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd)  testi- 
fied that  on  April  15th  Dana,  in  response  to  his  inquiry,  informed 
him  that  the  President's  murderer,  "supposed  to  be  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Booth,"  was  probably  hidden  in  Washington.23 

23Poore,  vol.  ii,  pp.  67-68.  N.  A.  Mudd,  "The  Life  of  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd";  p. 
90 On  Monday  morning   (Apr.  17)  Dr.  George  Mudd  told  Dana  that  on  Saturday, 


From    a    portrait    in    the    Nczv    York 
Herald 


THE  REV.  J.  G.  ARMSTRONG  OF  RICHMOND  AND  ATLANTA 


JOHN  ST.  HELEN  OF  TEXAS 

As  he  looked  in  the  Bates  tintype, 

from   which    the    portrait   at    the 

right  was  made 


"JOHN  WILKES  BOOTH, 
AGED  38" 

The  manufactured  portrait  in 
Bates'  book 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  341 

In  1897  Dana  represented  that  he  had  been  adjutant-general  on 
the  staff  of  Gen.  C.  C.  Augur,  commanding  the  Department  of 
Washington;  that  Augur  gave  him  full  discretionary  powers;  and 
that  he  had  "laid  out  the  plan  for  the  capture  of  Booth."  But  the 
official  records  show  that  in  April  1865  he  was  first  lieutenant 
and  provost  marshal  in  the  third  brigade  of  the  22nd  army  corps, 
and  reported  to  Captain  Chandler,  assistant  adjutant-general.  His 
story  in  the  Globe  is  full  of  statements  that  do  not  agree  with  the 
known  facts  or  are  thoroughly  improbable.24  But  it  was  a  windfall 
for  Bates,  because  Dana  had  really  borne  some  part,  even  if  but  a 
small  one,  in  those  events. 

Dana  said  that  just  before  the  murder  he  "learned  that  a  plot 
was  forming"  and  that  "the  blow  would  undoubtedly  be  aimed 
against  the  life  of  Pres.  Lincoln."  Forthwith  he  asked  for  (and 
received)  "a  battalion  of  veteran  cavalry"  and  obtained  orders  for 
a  stricter  guard  at  all  approaches  in  his  territory.  On  Friday, 
April  14th,  1865,  about  one  p.m.,  "two  men  appeared  before  the 
guard  on  the  road  leading  into  Washington  from  the  east."  Upon 
their  refusal  to  state  their  names  or  their  business,  they  were  ar- 
rested and  held  for  transfer  to  headquarters.  In  an  hour  or  so 
they  gave  the  names  of  Herold  and  Booth.  Then  an  order  came 
from  General  Augur  "to  release  all  prisoners  held  by  the  guards, 
and  to  withdraw  the  guard  until  further  orders."  The  two  men 
were  thereupon  released  and  at  once  rode  on  into  Washington 
City.  After  the  murder,  Augur,  "with  streaming  eyes,"  exclaimed 
to  Dana,  "My  God,  Marshal,  if  I  had  listened  to  your  advice  this 
terrible  thing  never  would  have  happened!" 

Here  is  suggestion  of  evil  contrivance  by  those  in  high  places. 
Here  is  the  hint  of  an  abrupt  change  in  military  instructions  that 
permitted  the  assassin  to  escape.  Small  wonder  that  Bates  fastened 
upon  Dana's  reminiscences.  From  them  he  created  his  narrative 
of  John  St.  Helen. 

Bates  says  that  St.  Helen  told  him  that  on  the  morning  of  April 

Apr.  15,  two  suspicious  persons  had  been  at  Samuel  Mudd's  house.  This  he  did 
with  Samuel  Mudd's  approval.  It  does  not  appear  that  Dana  followed  up  the  clue. 
24  In  a  letter  to  Bates  (Dec.  25,  1897),  Dana  claimed  also  that  Atzerodt  "was 
captured  by  my  troops."  (See  the  Dearborn  Independent,  Apr.  18,  1925;  p.  14.)  But 
Atzerodt  was  arrested  by  Sergeant  Gemmill,  under  orders  from  Captain  Townsend; 
and  the  arrest  was  made  at  Germantown,  Md.,  northwest  of  Washington  City,  miles 
from  the  region  at  the  southeast  to  which  Dana  had  been  sent. 


342  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

14th,  1865,  he  and  Herold  were  riding  back  to  Washington  City. 
They  had  been  almost  to  Richmond,  scanning  the  route  by  which 
Lincoln  was  to  be  abducted.  At  the  Navy  Yard  bridge  they  were 
stopped;  and  having  refused  to  give  their  names,  were  detained 
"until  in  the  afternoon  about  2  o'clock."  Having  given  a  satisfac- 
tory account  of  themselves,  they  were  allowed  to  proceed. 

They  "went  straight  to  the  Kirkwood  Hotel."  There  Vice- 
President  Johnson  lived,  and  there  had  been  "the  place  of  rendez- 
vous of  the  conspirators."  Upon  arriving  at  the  Kirkwood  about 
three  o'clock,  St.  Helen  discussed  with  Johnson  the  changed  pos- 
ture of  affairs,  especially  Lee's  surrender,  of  which  St.  Helen  had 
learned  only  that  afternoon.  The  end  of  the  war  seemed  near. 
The  plan  to  take  Lincoln  to  Richmond  was  impossible,  now  that 
the  Confederate  government  had  abandoned  the  city.  Johnson 
(said  St.  Helen)  "with  pale  face,  fixed  eyes,  and  quivering  lips," 
demanded: 

"Are  you  too  faint-hearted  to  kill  him?" 

Thus  it  was  Johnson  who  first  gave  St.  Helen  (according  to 
Bates)  the  notion  of  murder.  St.  Helen  insisted  that  escape  from 
the  city  would  be  impossible.  Johnson  promised  that  it  would  be 
certain.  He  likewise  promised  that  General  Grant  and  Mrs.  Grant 
would  not  be  present  at  Ford's  Theatre,  and  that  such  persons  as 
"would  not  interfere  with  me  [St.  Helen]  in  my  purpose"  would 
occupy  the  box  with  the  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln.  General 
Augur,  he  said,  would  call  in  the  guards  from  the  Navy  Yard 
bridge;  but  if  the  guards  had  not  yet  left,  the  password  was  "T.B." 
or  "T.  B.  Road."  25  Once  he  was  President,  Johnson  would  grant 
St.  Helen  "absolute  pardon,  if  need  be." 

In  a  letter  written  to  Dana  in  1897,  F.  A.  Demond  of  Cavendish, 
Vermont,  "a  member  of  your  [Dana's]  old  provost  guard,"  said 
that  he  was  stationed  at  the  Uniontown  end  of  the  Navy  Yard 
bridge  when  Booth  rode  across  from  Washington  City;  and  that 
he  heard  Booth  give  the  guard  on  post  "some  kind  of  answer  about 
going  to  see  some  one  who  lived  out  on  the  T.  B.  road."  Bates 
apparently  developed  this  hazy  reference  into  the  assertion  that 
Booth  and  Herold  "were  permitted  to  pass  the  guards  without 

25  "Escape";    pp.   41-44. — "East    Potomac    bridge,"   "East    Potomac    river    bridge," 
are  among  Bates'  names  for  the  Navy  Yard  bridge  over  the  East  Branch. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  343 

arrest  by  simply  giving  the  pass  word  'T.B.'  or  'T.  B.  Road'."  And 
T.  B.,  says  Bates,  "was  meaningless,  unless  understood  by  the  guard 
on  duty."  26  Actually,  T.  B.  was  a  crossroads  settlement  below 
Surrattsville.  Its  name  was  said  to  have  been  derived  from  initials 
found  cut  on  a  stone  boundary-mark  in  the  vicinity. 

Many  details  in  St.  Helen's  narrative  as  given  by  Bates  do  not 
fit  the  facts.  He  had  fractured  his  "right  shin  bone"— "about  six 
or  eight  inches  above  the  ankle";  and  he  exhibited  to  Bates  a  right 
shin  with  a  "niched  or  uneven  surface."  It  had  been  fractured 
"against  the  edge  of  the  stage."  He  said  that  Dr.  Mudd  made 
splints  with  "pieces  of  cigar  boxes."  He  said  that  Herold  held  the 
horse  at  the  rear  door  of  Ford's;  that  he  and  Herold  crossed  the 
Potomac  on  the  night  of  April  21st;  that  the  Garrett  house  was 
three  miles  or  more  from  the  highway  to  Bowling  Green;  that  he 
reached  Garrett's  on  April  22nd.27  Could  the  real  Booth  possibly 
have  told  the  story  so? 

It  was  Samuel  Cox's  overseer,  St.  Helen  said,  who  got  them 
across  the  Potomac.  The  overseer,  Ruddy,  had  previously  ar- 
ranged the  meeting  with  the  young  Confederates,  Jett,  Ruggles, 
and  Bainbridge;  and  he  accompanied  the  fugitives  over  the  Rap- 
pahannock to  Port  Royal,  where  these  three  were  waiting.  St. 
Helen  then  discovered  that  he  had  lost  his  diary,  some  letters,  and 
a  "picture  of  my  sister."  He  asked  Ruddy  to  turn  back  and  look 
for  these.  It  was  settled  that  Ruggles  and  Bainbridge  would  escort 
St.  Helen  to  Garrett's;  and  that  Herold  and  Ruddy  would  meet 
him  there  next  day. 

But  next  day  (April  23rd,  in  the  Bates  chronology)  the  Yankee 
cavalry  "crossed  the  Rappahannock  river  in  hot  pursuit."  Ruggles 
and  Bainbridge  supplied  a  horse  for  St.  Helen;  and  from  "a 
wooded  ravine"  near  the  Garrett  house  the  three  rode  away  west- 
ward. Early  on  the  24th  St.  Helen  parted  from  his  companions. 
He  rode  through  West  Virginia  and  Kentucky  into  Mississippi, 
and  went  on  to  the  Indian  Territory,  where  for  about  eighteen 
months  he  was  "associated  with  the  Apache  tribe."  28 

Thence  he  drifted  to  Nebraska  City,  and  there  a  contractor 

26  lb.;  p.   111. 

27  lb.;  pp.  47,  48,  50,  54. 

28  lb.;  pp.  58,  129-131,  293. 


344  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

hired  him  to  drive  a  four-mule  team  in  a  wagon  train  hauling  pro- 
visions to  Salt  Lake  City  for  the  Federal  government.  En  route  he 
quietly  disappeared  and  "proceeded  to  San  Francisco,  California, 
to  meet  my  mother  and  my  brother,  Junius  Brutus  Booth."  Then 
he  went  to  Mexico  and  Texas.29  Who  was  shot?  Ruddy. 

This  is  the  gist  of  the  tale  that  Finis  Bates  ascribed  to  John  St. 
Helen.  We  cannot  be  sure  how  much  of  it  is  Bates  and  how  much 
St.  Helen—but  Bates  seems  to  preponderate.  Is  there  any  fact? 
What  is  known  of  St.  Helen? 

5- 

At  Iredell,  in  Bosque  County,  Texas,  John  St.  Helen  was  a 
school-teacher,  taught  in  the  Hester  log  schoolhouse,  and  always 
wore  his  hat  in  school  hours.  Indeed,  tradition  in  Iredell  was 
that  St.  Helen  had  never  been  seen  bareheaded.  He  hailed  from 
New  Orleans,  and  it  was  said  that  the  name  he  there  passed  under 
was  Ney.  From  Iredell  he  went  to  Glen  Rose,  some  twenty  miles 
northeast,  where  he  kept  a  saloon  and  where  Finis  Bates  met 
him.  In  October  1872  he  went  to  Granbury. 

Ewell's  "History  of  Hood  County"  has  this  exciting  episode:30 

Wray  (James  Wray  of  Squaw  Creek]  was  a  brave  and  brawny  man, 
but  quiet  and  peaceably  disposed;  and  it  is  related  that  during  the 
turbulent  times,  two  men  at  enmity  with  him,  conspired  to  make  way 
with  him.  One  of  these,  St.  Helen,  by  name,  had  a  serious  impediment 
in  his  speech,  caused  by  asthma,  so  he  could  rarely  speak  above  a  whis- 
per. They  agreed  to  get  Wray  into  a  house,  extinguish  the  lights  and 
St.  Helen  was  to  immediately  knock  Wray  down  and  his  confederate 
then  to  fall  upon  him  and  cut  his  throat;  but  when  St.  Helen  made  at 
his  victim,  the  latter  anticipating  him,  reversed  the  plan  by  felling  St. 
Helen,  who  in  the  darkness  was  immediately  fallen  upon  by  his  fellow 
conspirator  with  knife  applied  to  his  throat  and  would  soon  have  been 
dispatched,  but  the  exigency  of  the  situation  caused  the  unfortunate 
St.  Helen,  for  the  moment,  to  gain  the  use  of  his  vocal  cords  and  loudly 
announce  his  identity. 

38  Bates  states  that  at  Enid  in  1903 — four  years  before  his  book  was  issued — he 
talked  with  one  Treadkell  [Thrailkell?],  who  told  at  length  of  a  Jesse  Smith  whom 
he  had  once  employed  as  a  teamster.  Treadkell  was  delivering  supplies  to  United 
States  troops  at  Salt  Lake  City.  Jesse  knew  little  about  mules  but  around  camp  was 
the  life  of  the  party,  fascinating  all  with  his  "grandly  eloquent"  recitations  of 
poems  and  Shakespearean  plays.  The  day  before  Salt  Lake  City  was  reached,  he  took 
French  leave. 

30Chapt.  xxxvii,  p.  91. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  345 

In  1921  F.  L.  Black,  acting  for  the  Dearborn  Independent,  vis- 
ited Hood  County  and  interviewed  all  persons  he  could  find  who 
had  known  St.  Helen,  or  who  had  been  there  in  St.  Helen's  day.31 
Says  Black:  "Mr.  Bates'  descriptions  of  John  St.  Helen,  when  read 
to  Granbury  people  who  knew  him,  greatly  amused  them."  Here 
are  extracts  from  statements  they  made: 

I  was  in  Granbury  during  the  time  St.  Helen  was  here.  ...  St.  Helen 
was  a  typical  saloon  desperado.  He  had  a  quick  eye  and  sometimes  his 
eyes  were  rather  wild  looking.  (Frank  Gaston,  editor  of  the  Granbury 
News) 

He  never  got  dramatic  unless  warmed  up  with  whisky.  He  was  in- 
clined to  quote  poetry  both  when  sober  and  drunk,  but  I  never  saw 
him  read  any  book  or  have  any  in  his  possession.  ...  I  do  not  remember 
that  St.  Helen  and  Finis  Bates  were  ever  intimately  acquainted,  and 
do  not  think  it  could  have  been  possible,  due  to  their  difference  in  age 
and  character.  Bates  was  just  a  young  green  kid  and  St.  Helen  was  a 
hardened  man  of  the  world  of  at  least  forty.  (A.  P.  Gordon,  in  Hood 
County  from  1871) 

St.  Helen  once  started  a  fight  in  my  place  of  business  with  a  half- 
breed  Indian  by  the  name  of  Selvidge.  St.  Helen  came  in  half-drunk 
and  in  a  violent  and  vicious  mood.  Just  how  the  fight  started,  I  do  not 
know,  but  the  first  thing  I  saw  was  Selvidge  on  the  floor  with  "Saint" 
on  top  of  him.  Bill  McDonald  was  in  the  saloon  and  ran  up  with  a 
knife  to  aid  St.  Helen.  I  grabbed  Bill  and  pushed  him  out  through  the 
front  door.  When  I  turned  I  saw  St.  Helen  going  out  the  back  door  and 
found  Selvidge  back  of  the  counter  with  a  bloody  knife.  He  had  cut 
St.  Helen  across  the  back  of  the  neck,  opening  the  muscles,  which  left 
a  bad  scar.  (D.  L.  Nntt) 

While  I  remember  him  quoting  poetry,  I  do  not  remember  of  him 
ever  making  fine  speeches;  this  would  have  been  impossible  anyway  on 
account  of  his  throat.  (George  W.  Wright) 

J.  H.  Doyle,  merchant  in  Granbury  in  the  'seventies,  and  D.  L. 
Nutt,  who  had  been  prominent  in  Hood  County,  both  denied 
that  St.  Helen  ever  had  much  money.  Ashley  W.  Crockett,  for- 
merly of  the  Vidette,  was  sure  that  if  St.  Helen  received  periodi- 
cal remittances  the  fact  must  have  become  known.  Ashley  Crock- 
ett, grandson  of  Davy  Crockett  of  the  Alamo  and  well  versed  in  the 
early-day  history  of  Hood  County,  said  in  a  letter  responding  to 
various  queries  of  the  present  writer: 

^Dearborn  Independent,  Apr.  18,  1925;  p.  10 Sworn  statements  by  these  per- 
sons were  taken — The  Vidette  was  Hood  County's  first  newspaper. 


346  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

In  the  fall  of  1872,  a  man  came  to  this  town  under  the  name  of  John 
St.  Helen  and  entered  the  saloon  business,  naming  his  saloon  the 
"Black  Hawk."  ...  St.  Helen  left  Granbury  in  May  1873  for  Colo- 
rado. .  .  .  While  a  very  young  man  in  Granbury  in  1872,  I  knew  this 
man  St.  Helen  but  was  not  at  all  intimate  with  him,  and  have  never 
believed  that  he  was  John  Wilkes  Booth.32 

And  what  is  actually  known  of  David  E.  George  before  his 
suicide?  He  was  a  house  painter— "an  ordinary  painter,  not  very 
good  or  very  bad"— and  worked  at  his  trade  when  there  was  work 
to  do.  Out  of  work,  he  loafed  around  stores  and  police  stations. 
When  he  left  El  Reno,  he  owed  a  local  merchant  $40  for  paint. 
He  spoke  with  a  Southern  drawl,  gave  signs  of  some  education,  but 
was  "not  particularly  polished."  A  periodic  drinker,  he  mumbled 
when  in  his  cups.  Sometimes  he  "recited."  Occasionally  he  fell  into 
morose  spells  and  spoke  little.  Once,  in  El  Reno,  he  got  violent, 
brandished  a  six-shooter,  and  was  arrested.  He  dyed  his  mustache 
and  hair,  and  was  neat  about  his  clothing. 

At  El  Reno  he  bought  a  four  room  cottage  for  $700  and  paid 
$350  by  check.  (Bates  says  that  the  purchase  price  was  $3,500  and 
that  George  "lacked  a  small  amount  of  having  enough  money  to 
pay  cash."  33  The  correct  figures  are  matters  of  record.)  J.  W.  Sim- 
mons and  his  wife  occupied  the  cottage,  rent  free;  gave  George 
board  and  lodging;  and  looked  after  him.  Before  long,  Mrs.  Sim- 
mons wearied  of  the  lodger's  drunken  clamor;  so  she  and  her 
husband  took  the  house  and  gave  George  a  note  for  $350. 

In  April  1900,  while  living  with  the  Simmons  family,  he  swal- 
lowed a  heavy  dose  of  a  drug  and  proclaimed  that  he  was  about 
to  die.  To  a  lady  whom  he  had  known  but  a  few  weeks  and  who 
happened  to  be  at  the  time  a  visitor  in  the  house,  he  "confessed," 
just  before  lapsing  into  unconsciousness,  that  he  had  killed  "one 
of  the  best  men  that  ever  lived,  Abraham  Lincoln."  He  asked  her 
to  bring  pencil  and  paper,  and  wrote:  "I  am  going  to  die  before 
the  sun  goes  down.  J.  Wilkes  Booth."  She  became  in  May  the  wife 
of  the  Rev.  E.  C.  Harper,  who  on  January  14th,  1903,  burst  in 

32  Bates  says  ("Escape";  p.  83)  it  was  "in  the  spring  of  1878"  that  St.  Helen 
departed  for  Leadville.  He  told  F.  L.  Black  that  St.  Helen  was  a  founder  of  the 
Elks  at  Leadville,  where  his  portrait  adorned  the  lodge.  Black  established  that  the 
portrait  was  of  an  actor  named  Charles  Vincent  {Dearborn  Independent f  Apr.  18, 
1925;  p.  14). 

^"Escape";  p.  289. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  347 

upon  Ryan  in  the  Enid  undertaking  establishment  with  the  words, 
"That  is  the  body  of  John  Wilkes  Booth." 

David  George  was  restored  to  life;  and  as  he  had  drifted  from 
Hennessey  to  El  Reno,  so  now  he  drifted  from  El  Reno  to  Enid.34 
On  the  morning  of  January  13th,  1903,  Lee  Boyd,  another  roomer 
at  Enid's  Grand  Avenue  Hotel,  heard  groans  in  George's  cubicle, 
the  outer  wall  of  which  was  a  low  partition.  Stepping  from  a  trunk 
in  the  hallway,  Boyd  clambered  over  and  found  that  George  had 
taken  poison  and  was  in  convulsions.  Within  about  five  minutes 
Dr.  R.  M.  Field  arrived,  but  it  was  too  late.  Both  Boyd  and  Dr. 
Field  made  sworn  statements  that  there  was  no  confession  by 
George  at  this  time.  George  was  quite  unable  to  speak.35 

Bates'  book  reports  Brown,  the  hotel  clerk,  as  saying  George 
was  stricken  after  eleven  on  the  night  of  the  13th,  and  when 
the  doctor  had  left  him  (about  four  a.m.  on  the  14th)  declared: 
"My  name  is  not  George.  I  am  John  Wilkes  Booth."  But  George's 
death  was  reported  in  the  evening  papers  of  the  13th,  and  Under- 
taker Penniman  said  that  death  occurred  about  ten-thirty  or 
eleven  on  the  morning  of  that  day!  Bates  falsified  the  date  to  make 
time  for  the  deathbed  confession.36 

Were  John  St.  Helen  and  David  E.  George  one  and  the  same? 

Both  St.  Helen  and  George  were  periodic  "drunks":  and  when 
drunk,  both  were  noisy.  From  Glen  Rose  the  present  writer  had 
the  word  of  an  old  lady  in  whose  house  St.  Helen  lodged  a  while 
that  he  "would  jump  up  in  the  night  and  scream  there  was  some 
one  after  him."  At  El  Reno,  Mrs.  J.  W.  Simmons  found  David  E. 
George  much  too  vociferous.  Drunk  or  sober,  each  was  inclined 
to  repeat  scraps  of  poetry.  Amateur  elocutionists  and  vocalists  were 

34  Bates  says  that  George  lived  at  Hennessey  as  a  "gentleman  of  leisure"  under 
the  name  of  George  D.  Ryan  ("Escape";  pp.  229,  238,  240).  Perhaps  that  was  an 
attempt  to  render  him  more  mysterious.  He  lived  in  Hennessey  as  David  E.  George 
and  worked  at  his  trade  of  house-painting.  (Dearborn  Independent,  Apr.  25,  1925; 
p.  10). 

35  This  is  here  emphasized  because  for  use  in  his  book  Bates  altered  the  original 
affidavit  made  by  Dumont  (proprietor)  and  Brown  (clerk)  of  the  Grand  Avenue 
Hotel,  causing  it  to  read  that  George  took  fifteen  grains  of  strychnine  or  arsenic 
and  "died  from  the  effects  of  said  poison  at  6:30  o'clock  a.m.,  on  the  14th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1903."  F.  L.  Black  charged  that  subsequent  to  the  writing  of  the  original  docu- 
ment these  words  were  added:  "George  declaring  on  his  death  bed  that  he  was 
John  Wilks    [sic]    Booth."  This  does  not,  however,  appear  in   the  printed  form. 

("Escape";  p.  272). 
38  "Escape";  pp.  266-271. 


348  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

common  among  barroom  habitues— especially  in  frontier  towns. 
Asked  whether  George  recited  Shakespeare,  W.  H.  Ryan,  the  un- 
dertaker of  Enid,  laughed  and  answered:  "It  may  have  sounded 
like  Shakespeare  to  the  men  in  the  saloons  who  heard  it.  But  we 
didn't  know  much  of  Shakespeare  in  Oklahoma  Territory  in 
those  days." 

By  Bates'  telling,  St.  Helen's  "favorite  occupation"  was  reading 
Shakespeare's  plays,  "or  rather  reciting  them  as  he  alone  could 
do."  Further,  "his  special  preference  seemed  to  be  that  of  Richard 
III."  And,  says  Bates,  "he  began  his  recitations,  as  I  now  remember 
him,  by  somewhat  transposing  the  introductory  of  Richard  III, 
saying: 

"  T  would  I  could  laugh  with  those  who  laugh  and  weep  with 
those  who  weep,  wet  my  eyes  with  artificial  tears  and  frame  my 
face  to  all  occasions—'  following  with  much  of  the  recitation  of 
Richard  III."  .  .  .37 

Bates  was  no  Shakespearean!  In  Gloster's  soliloquy  that  opens 
"Richard  III"  there  is  nothing  (in  the  original  or  the  Cibber 
version)  like  this  quotation.  It  seems  to  be  mangled  Scripture 
(Rom.  xii,  15)  combined  with  two  lines  from  Gloster's  long 
speech  in  the  third  part  of  "Henry  VI"  (act  iii,  sc.  2,  184-185). 
It  is  hard  to  imagine  that  Bates  heard  these  words  from  John 
Booth! 

According  to  a  statement  by  Mrs.  Harper  (then  Mrs.  Young) 
in  January  1921,  George,  when  he  made  his  confession  to  her  in 
April  1900,  explained  that  "he  had  friends  in  Washington,  who, 
after  he  escaped  from  the  theatre  in  which  he  killed  Lincoln,  had 
hidden  him  in  a  trunk,  and  got  him  on  a  boat  for  Europe,  where 
he  had  remained  for  ten  years."  Thus  he  would  have  been  abroad 
at  the  very  time  when  St.  Helen  was  running  the  Black  Hawk 
in  Granbury. 

St.  Helen  was  a  gambler,  always  equipped  with  revolver  and 
knife,  and  even  in  frontier  Texas  passed  for  a  "bad  man."  George 
did  own  a  shooting-iron  (for  the  police  of  El  Reno  took  it  from 
him),  but  he  was  "harmless  when  sober."  He  was  a  roving  house 
painter,  innocent  of  bravado,  and  slow  pay  for  his  little  advertise- 
ment in  the  El  Reno  Democrat.  There  is  no  reference  to  his  hav- 

37  lb.;  p.  22. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  349 

ing  the  asthmatic  wheeze  or  vocal  impediment  that  troubled  St. 
Helen.  By  Bates'  statement,  John  St.  Helen  had  "flashing  black 
eyes"; 38  but  Mrs.  Harper  said  George's  eyes  were  "deep  blue." 
And  Ryan,  the  undertaker  (later  Enid's  mayor),  affirmed:  "A 
hundred  times  in  that  back  room  I  went  to  the  corpse  and  raised 
the  lids  and  looked  at  those  eyes,  and  they  were  dark  blue."  So 
bloated  with  poison  was  George's  body  that  Bates'  instant  iden- 
tification could  hardly  have  been  bona  fide;  especially  as  it  was 
more  than  a  quarter-century  since  Bates  had  seen  St.  Helen.39 

Bates  was  sure  that  regular  remittances  came  to  St.  Helen  and 
George  from  the  Booth  family,  either  directly  or  through  an  agent. 
But  apparently  neither  ever  had  any  money. 

St.  Helen  gained  a  little  income  from  selling  whisky  and  from 
petty  gambling.  George  made  two  wills— one  at  El  Reno,  dated 
June  17th,  1902;  the  other  at  Enid  on  December  31st.  By  the 
second  he  bequeathed  $5,500  from  nonexistent  life-insurance 
policies;  seven  hundred  acres  of  land  he  never  owned;  cash  he 
did  not  have.  The  land  was  said  to  be  in  the  Chickasaw  nation, 
but  the  first  Chickasaw  allotments  to  individuals  were  not  made 
until  April  1903— after  the  date  of  the  will;  and  George  was  not 
enrolled  in  the  Chickasaw  nation.  The  Simmons  note  for  $350 
was  left  to  the  attorney  that  drew  the  will.  George,  when  he  died, 
had  nothing  but  his  clothing,  a  watch,  a  trunk,  some  papers 
(which  Penniman  took),  and  two  cents  in  his  pocket. 

The  papers  included  this  note: 

Jan.  13  1902  [error  for  1903] 
I  am  informed  that  I  made  a  will  a  few  days  ago  and  am  indistinct 
of  having  done  so.  I  herewith]  recall  every  letter  syllable  and  word  of 
any  will  that  I  may  have  signed  at  Enid. 

I  owe  Jack  Bernstein  about  Ten  Dollars  but  he  has  my  watch  in 
pawn  for  the  amt. 

D.  E.  George 

Possibly  the  second  will  was  a  device  to  revive  George's  declining 
credit. 

Bates  ascribed  to  St.  Helen  a  keen  interest  in  the  drama  and 
things  theatrical,  and  called  George  "a  constant  attendant  at  the 

nIb.;p.  27. 

30  See  picture  facing  p.  276  of  the  "Escape." 


350  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

theaters  at  El  Reno,  Enid,  Oklahoma  City,  and  Guthrie." 40 
George,  Bates  said,  was  so  struck  by  the  genius  of  the  leading  lady 
of  a  theatrical  company  playing  in  those  towns  that  he  obtained 
an  introduction  to  her,  claiming  to  be  J.  L.  Harris,  a  correspon- 
dent of  the  Dramatic  Mirror.  He  acted  as  her  dramatic  coach  and 
wrote  for  her  a  play,  "A  Life  within  the  Shadow  of  Sin."  In  1921 
Bates  stated  that  this  actress  was  Josie  Cameron  (Mrs.  Charles  A. 
Cameron);  Mrs.  Cameron,  interviewed  in  Chicago,  said  that  she 
had  known  John  W.  Robinson,  the  Mirror's  actual  representative 
at  Enid,  but  no  J.  L.  Harris.  Robinson  had  died  in  Enid  before 
George  arrived  there.41 

Did  John  Booth  become  either  St.  Helen  or  George? 

Responsible  testimony  (much  of  it  in  sworn  statements)  by 
those  who  knew  St.  Helen  is  in  such  consistent  disagreement  with 
Bates'  descriptions  that  we  must  look  upon  these  as  fiction.  Both 
in  broader  outlines  and  in  significant  details,  the  St.  Helen  "con- 
fession" is  so  wholly  at  odds  with  known  facts  that  we  must  sup- 
pose either  that  Booth  by  1872  retained  most  fantastic  memories 
of  his  own  adventures  or  that  Bates  in  his  figments  was  both 
ignorant  and  clumsy. 

In  the  case  of  George,  W.  H.  Ryan  was  quite  untouched  by  the 
arguments  of  Bates;  and  Penniman,  jesting  at  Bates'  "real  posi- 
tive" proofs,  said,  "Bates  is  the  only  man  who  ever  tried  to  con- 
vince me  as  to  the  real  identity  of  this  bird." 

"I  never  thought  he  was  John  Wilkes  Booth,"  said  C.  R.  Miller 
of  El  Reno,  who  knew  George  well  and  of  whom  George  bought 
house  paint  and  hair  dye.  T.  F.  Hensley,  editor  from  1901  to  1903 
of  the  El  Reno  Democrat,  said  that  the  common  impression  in  El 
Reno  was  that  George  was  "just  a  drunken  bum." 

Among  those  who  were  susceptible  to  the  Booth  ballyhoo  after 
George's  death  was  G.  E.  Smith.  He  had  lent  various  sums  to 
George.  His  wife  was  the  beneficiary  of  George's  first  will,  and 
Smith  himself  was  executor.  For  a  time  he  hoped  to  make  "big 
money"  in  partnership  with  Finis  Bates  by  exhibiting  the  "re- 
mains." Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Smith  were  satisfied  that  somewhere 
George  had  "considerable  property."  Smith  said  that  often  George, 

40  "Escape";  p.  299. 

41  Enid  Wave,  Oct.  13,  1902. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  351 

"under  the  influence  of  liquor,"  had  styled  himself  "a  man  with  a 
past."  Once  he  referred  to  killing  somebody  in  Texas.  George's 
confession  to  Ida  Harper  is  quite  at  variance  with  St.  Helen's  con- 
fession to  Bates  and  in  itself  is  equally  impossible. 

Penniman  said  of  Bates'  tintype:  "I  was  never  able  to  see  any 
striking  resemblance  between  the  body  and  the  tintype."  And 
he  added:  "In  fact,  Bates  asked  me  to  do  all  I  could  to  make  the 
body  look  like  the  picture  and  so  we  combed  the  hair  and  mus- 
tache accordingly."  Already  the  dye  was  beginning  to  fade. 

There  is  no  marked  resemblance  between  the  tintype  and  good 
authentic  portraits  of  John  Booth.  Bates  must  have  been  conscious 
of  this.  In  his  book,  the  "Escape,"  the  portrait  facing  page  202  and 
titled  "John  Wilkes  Booth,  Aged  38"  is  not,  as  he  states,  "from 
the  tin-type."  It  is  from  an  independent  and  extremely  wooden 
original,  based  on  the  tintype  but  with  a  scenic  background 
painted  in  (as  in  old  oil  portraits),  with  the  dress  altered,  and  with 
the  head  more  youthful  than  in  the  tintype  and  distinctly  more 
like  some  of  the  later  authentic  portraits  of  Booth.  Bates'  alleged 
portrait  of  Booth  at  twenty-seven  also  is  "faked."  It  is  derived 
from  genuine  carte-de-viste  portraits  of  Booth  but  resembles  the 
St.  Helen-Booth  fraud  far  more  than  either  resembles  the  true 
John  Wilkes.  Both  are  indeed  counterfeit  presentments— and  look 
so.  The  cracked  tintype  that  Bates  produced  at  Enid  and  later  ex- 
hibited to  F.  L.  Black  and  W.  G.  Shepherd  was  not  distinctive. 
On  seeing  a  photograph  of  it,  says  F.  L.  Black,  an  undertaker  in 
Leadville  remarked:  "I  buried  a  hundred  fellows  that  looked  very 
much  like  that,  back  in  the  early  days." 

Bates  in  his  book  made  a  great  to-do  over  Joseph  Jefferson's 
recognizing  the  tintype  as  a  portrait  of  Booth.  He  said  that  by 
appointment  he  called  on  Jefferson  in  Memphis  on  April  14th, 
19°3-  Jefferson  looked  at  the  tintype  and  (according  to  Bates) 
observed,  "This  is  John  Wilkes  Booth,  if  John  Wilkes  Booth  was 
living  when  this  picture  was  taken."  Bates  adds,  "I  deem  it  my 
duty  to  say  that  I  was  impressed  with  the  idea  that  Mr.  Jefferson 
was  by  no  means  surprised.  .  .  .  [He]  gave  expression  to  no  more 
surprise  than  to  ask,  'Where  did  you  get  it?'  " 

What  Mr.  Jefferson  actually  thought  may  be  gathered  from  his 
reply  to  a  letter  from  Oliver  D.  Street  of  Birmingham,  Alabama, 


352  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

at  that  time  secretary  of  the  Tennessee  Valley  Historical  Society. 

Buzzard's  Bay,  Mass.,  June  10,  1903 
Mr.  Oliver  D  Street 
Dear  Sir: 

In  reply  to  your  enquiry  I  beg  to  say  that  a  gentleman  called  on  me 
last  spring  and  related  to  me  his  story  contained  in  your  letter.  He 
showed  me  also  a  tintype  much  disfigured  and  asked  me  if  I  did  not 
recognize  it  as  John  Wilkes  Booth.  I  told  him  that  it  bore  a  kind  of 
resemblance  to  him  but  that  as  I  had  not  seen  Booth  since  he  was  19 
years  old  and  as  the  tintype  was  evidently  that  of  a  man  of  55  or  sixty 
it  was  quite  impossible  for  me  to  give  him  any  satisfactory  information 
on  the  subject — and  this  is  what  he  calls  my  "identification  of  Booth's 
remains" — rather  weak  evidence  for  such  an  important  case — and  I  do 
not  think  that  Miss  Clara  Morris  (who  also  denies  the  identification) 
has  had  any  further  testimony  beyond  the  uncertain  tintype. 

The  gentleman  further  stated  that  he  was  trying  to  obtain  the  evi- 
dence so  that  he  could  get  possession  of  the  dead  man's  estate  for  his 
client.  My  opinion  is  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  foundation  for  the 
truth  of  this  rambling  story. 

Sincerely  yours 

J  Jefferson 

Bates  described  identifying  marks  that  he  recognized  in  George's 
body  at  Enid  in  1903:  a  high  thumb-joint  on  the  right  hand;  an 
unevenness  of  the  right  eyebrow,  throwing  it  out  of  alignment 
with  the  left;  and  "a  slight  indentation  on  the  front  of  the  shin 
bone"  of  the  right  leg.42  They  do  not  prove  that  George  was 
Booth.  Booth's  hand  were  not  deformed.  Numerous  authentic 
photographs  of  him  (including  one  that  his  brother  Edwin  kept) 
show  his  right  hand  plainly,  with  no  sign  of  any  distortion.  But 
his  left  hand  bore  his  initials  in  India  ink— and  both  Penniman 
and  Ryan  said  there  were  no  such  marks  on  George.  Booth's  eye- 
brows were  not  mismatched.  Clara  Morris,  who  acted  with  Booth 
in  a  stock  company  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  tells  how,  in  a  rehearsal 
of  "Richard  III,"  J.  G.  McCollom,  the  Richmond  to  Booth's 
Richard,  dealt  Booth  an  accidental  sword-blow  across  the  fore- 
head, causing  a  gash  that  cut  into  "one  eyebrow."  Bates  quotes 
her  account43  and  from  it  he  got  the  hypothesis  of  an  "uneven 
brow."  But  the  injury  left  no  permanent  mark. 

W.  E.  Robare,  chief  of  police  at  El  Reno  from  1900  to  1903, 

42  "Escape";  pp.  262-263. 

""Life  on  the  Stage";  pp.  97-98.  "Escape";  pp.  197-199. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  353 

said  of  George,  "His  eyebrows  were  heavy  [which  Booth's  were 
not]  and  were  perfect  matches."  44  Neither  thumb  nor  eyebrow 
was  ever  mentioned  by  Booth's  friends,  referred  to  in  testimony, 
spoken  of  in  the  newspapers,  or  included  in  any  official  descrip- 
tions of  Booth. 

As  for  an  indented  right  shin,  William  H.  Ryan,  to  whom  the 
world  owed  George's  mummy,  said  that  "as  far  as  he  could  see, 
both  of  George's  legs  were  whole  and  sound."  Shepherd,  when  he 
viewed  the  mummy  in  the  Bates  garage  in  1924,  was  requested  to 
note  "a  slight  irregularity  on  the  bone  of  the  right  ankle";  but  he 
found  this  "difficult  for  me  to  see."  45  Moreover,  it  was  Booth's  left 
leg  that  was  injured. 

There  are  no  known  specimens  of  St.  Helen's  handwriting.  Of 
George's,  there  are  the  signatures  to  his  two  wills;  his  check  for 
$350  (the  payment  he  made  on  the  cottage  at  El  Reno);  the  sen- 
tence he  wrote  for  Mrs.  Harper,  with  his  "J.  Wilkes  Booth"  added 
thereto;  and  the  note  revoking  his  will  of  December  31st,  1902. 
None  of  these  at  all  resembled  the  handwriting  of  John  Booth  as 
shown  in  his  correspondence,  on  his  signed  photographs,  or  in 
his  diary.  W.  G.  Shepherd,  in  his  investigation  for  Harper's,  was 
sure  that  George's  signature  proved  that  he  was  not  Booth,  for 
George's  writing  was  illiterate,  each  letter  formed  separately  and 
painfully.46 


r 


(Above)    Signature    to    the    Memorandum    D.    E.    George 
gave  to  Mrs.  Harper 

(Below)  Authentic  signature  of  John  Booth 

44  Dearborn  Independent,  Apr.  25,  1925;  p.  10. 

45  Dearborn  Independent,  Apr.  25,  1925;  p.  11.  Harper's  Magazine,  Nov.  1924; 
p.  703. 

40  In  Francis  Wilson's  "Jonn  Wilkes  Booth,"  the  plate  facing  p.  250  has  what  is 
offered  as  a  reduced  facsimile  of  a  page  from  Booth's  diary.  Unfortunately,  through 
some  error,  this  is  not  from  the  diary  nor  is  the  handwriting  Booth's. 


354  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

"Especial  attention,"  writes  Bates,  "is  called  to  Gen.  Dana's 
identification  of  the  tintype  picture  of  John  Wilkes  Booth." 
Until  he  had  written  to  Dana,  Bates  says  that  his  own  idea  was 
that  the  tintype  "must  be  a  picture  of  some  one  of  the  Herolds."  47 
After  he  wrote  to  Dana,  Dana  sent  him  likenesses  of  Booth  and 
Herold,  and  then  Bates  says  that  he  knew  St.  Helen  "was  indeed 
the  man  he  claimed  to  be."  But  when  Bates  sent  Dana  a  photo- 
graph of  the  St.  Helen  tintype,  Dana  suggested  that  it  might  be 
Junius  Brutus  II  (of  whom  he  evidently  knew  nothing),  and 
unequivocally  set  down  that  in  1865  he  had  seen  John  Booth 
lying  dead.  In  brief,  Dana  had  helped  Bates  persuade  himself  that 
St.  Helen  was  Booth— but  Dana  knew  better. 

Clara  Morris  was  cited  by  Bates  because  her  description  of  the 
John  Booth  she  knew  so  perfectly  fitted  John  St.  Helen!  She  did 
not  identify  the  two.  When  it  was  reported  that  Miss  Morris  had 
positively  identified  George's  body  as  that  of  Booth,  the  New 
York  Tribune  said: 

Miss  Clara  Morris  denied  last  evening  [June  2nd,  1903]  any  such 
identification.  She  said  that  three  years  ago  she  received  a  letter  written 
in  a  rambling  way  from  a  man  who  claimed  to  know  that  Booth  was 
living,  but  she  paid  no  attention  to  it.48 

On  June  11th,  1903,  F.  C.  Harriott,  Clara  Morris'  husband, 
wrote  to  Oliver  D.  Street  that  his  wife  was  "no  believer  in  the 
story  of  Booth's  substitution  and  of  his  only  recent  death."  He 
stated  that  when  her  "Life  on  the  Stage"  appeared,  with  a  chap- 
ter on  Booth,49  a  person  in  the  South  wrote  to  say  that  Booth  was 
still  alive  and  to  ask  an  audience  with  Miss  Morris  in  New  York 
on  a  given  day.  "I  answered  his  note  by  saying  that  the  audience 
would  be  given,  but  no  one  appeared."  .  .  .  Harriott  added: 
"We  take  no  stock  in  the  occasional  sensations  pertaining  to  David 
George  or  others." 

Bates  tells  of  an  interview  he  says  he  had  at  Memphis  in  Feb- 
ruary 1903  with  Junius  Brutus  Booth  III.  Born  on  January 
6th,   1868,  this  Junius  Brutus  had  never  seen  his  Uncle  John. 

47  "Escape";  pp.  168-169. 

48  June  3,  1903;  p.  4. 

w  New  York,  1901.  The  chapter  was  first  printed  in  McClure's  Magazine,  Feb.  1901; 
pp.  299-304. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  355 

After  Bates  had  sought  him  out,  he  gave  what  Bates  is  pleased  to 
term  a  "voluntary  statement."  Even  after  possible  editing  by 
Bates,  the  statement  amounts  to  no  more  than  that,  having  ex- 
amined a  portrait  (ostensibly  the  St.  Helen  tintype)  which  Bates 
showed  him,  Junius  Brutus  III  thought  he  saw  in  it  a  certain 
resemblance  to  John  and  to  others  of  the  Booths. 

6. 

Bates  gives  many  anecdotes  that  seem  to  confirm  his  theory— 
until  they  are  analyzed!  One  romantic  gentleman  said  (according 
to  Bates)  that  at  his  house  in  Mississippi,  in  the  dusk  of  an  eve- 
ning of  1869,  "an  erratic  fellow"  arrived  who  said  he  was  a  Ku 
Klux  Klansman  and  had  been  run  out  of  Arkansas  by  the  militia. 
To  his  sure  knowledge  Booth  had  escaped  to  Mexico,  where  he 
had  fought  in  Maximilian's  army  and  then  roved  about  disguised 
as  a  padre.  Bates  identified  this  Klansman  with  John  St.  Helen. 
But  Maximilian  was  active  in  the  field  from  February  to  May 
15th,  1867;  and  at  that  time  St.  Helen  was  presumed  to  have  been 
at  Nebraska  City  or  on  his  trek  from  there  to  San  Francisco. 
According  to  Bates  himself,  St.  Helen  said  that  after  leaving  San 
Francisco  he  "went  into  Mexico."  50 

Among  Bates'  many  affidavits,  one  from  N.  C.  Newman  con- 
tained details  so  important  that  it  is  strange  St.  Helen  omitted 
them.  Newman  said  that  his  mother  was  a  half-sister  of  Mary  Ann 
(Holmes)  Booth,  John  Booth's  mother;  and  that  Booth  after  his 
escape  from  Garrett's,  had  come  to  the  Newman  home  at  Friend- 
ville,  Kentucky,  on  Raccoon  Creek,  and  had  been  cared  for  there. 
Bates'  St.  Helen  had  said  he  had  remained  for  a  week  as  a 
"wounded  Confederate  soldier"  with  "a  widow  lady  and  her 
young  son"  who  lived  fifty  or  sixty  miles  southwest  of  Warfield 
(in  eastern  Kentucky)  but  "whose  name  I  can  not  now  remem- 
ber." It  seems  incredible  that  Booth  could  have  forgotten  his 
mother's  half-sister's  married  name.  And  the  place  where  the 
Newmans  lived  cannot  be  identified,  for  no  Friendville  in  Ken- 
tucky appears  in  atlases  of  1865.51 

60  "Escape";  p.  58. 

81  lb.;  p.  57.  Bernie  Babcock  cites  the  "affidavit"  in  her  fictional  "Booth  and  the 
Spirit  of  Lincoln,"  and  says  she  examined  the  original  in  Memphis.  Other  equally 
reliable  "affidavits"  were  in  "the  Bates  collection." 


356  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Were  John  St.  Helen  and  David  E.  George  the  same  person? 
On  the  face  of  it,  it  seems  improbable.  It  is  far  more  improbable 
that  John  Booth  was  metamorphosed  into  St.  Helen,  the  "typical 
saloon  desperado"  of  the  Texan  Hinterland,  or  into  George,  the 
boozy  house  painter  and  loafer  of  Oklahoma. 

The  St.  Helen  of  1872,  as  Granbury  folk  knew  him,  bore  no 
resemblance  to  the  John  Booth  who  had  been  so  colorful  and 
distinctive  only  seven  or  eight  years  before.  A.  P.  Gordon  of 
Granbury  (once  St.  Helen's  employer)  calls  St.  Helen  in  1872  a 
man  at  least  forty.  Booth  would  have  been  well  under  thirty-five. 
Perhaps  Booth  and  St.  Helen  were  alike  in  medium  height,  welter- 
weight figure,  dark  hair,  and  pendent  mustache.52  But  features 
and  planes  of  the  face  were  quite  different.  St.  Helen's  hair  was 
not  so  wavy,  had  not  the  "inky  blackness"  of  Booth's  tragic  head. 
His  ears,  eyes,  chin  were  unlike  Booth's.  The  vital  spirit  that  lives 
in  Booth's  most  casual  photographs  was  lacking.  St.  Helen  had 
none  of  the  gifts  that  had  made  Booth  eminent  upon  the  stage 
when  he  was  but  twenty-five;  none  of  the  graces  that  made  Booth 
remembered  as  "so  bright,  so  gay,  so  kind." 

Said  Editor  Frank  Gaston  of  Granbury:  "No  one  around  here 
at  that  time  [the  'seventies]  thought  St.  Helen  so  strange  and 
different,  but,  of  course,  many  after  they  heard  he  might  be  John 
Wilkes  Booth  thought  him  quite  different."  A  quarter-century 
later,  George  is  even  more  unconvincing.  "It  is  rather  funny," 
said  C.  R.  Miller,  druggist  of  El  Reno,  "but  while  George  was 
here  he  was  known  only  as  an  old  drunken  painter,  but  as  soon 
as  the  story  got  around  that  he  might  be  John  Wilkes  Booth  all 
the  people  that  had  ever  seen  him  were  telling  how  he  quoted 
Shakespeare  and  how  dramatic  he  had  been.  It  seemed  that  then 
all  knew  there  was  something  different  about  Old  Man  George." 

Neither  George  nor  St.  Helen  really  carried  any  air  of  the 
stage.  A.  P.  Gordon,  at  one  time  St.  Helen's  employer  in  Gran- 
bury, said  that  St.  Helen  "never  to  my  knowledge  took  part  in 
any  plays  or  entertainments." 

In  December   1931    United  Press  reports  described  a  clinical 

62  We  do  not  know  the  actual  date  of  the  tintype.  Bates  says   1877,  but  appar- 
ently St.  Helen  left  Granbury  long  before  that. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  357 

study  of  the  mummy  by  a  group  of  seven  physicians  in  Chicago. 
X-rays  and  electric  dissecting  saws  discovered  a  dislocated  left 
thumb,  a  broken  fibula  (which  leg  not  specified),  and  a  portion 
of  a  signet  ring  engraved  with  what  was  possibly  the  letter  J3.53 
The  physician  directing  the  work  announced:  "I  can  say  safely 
that  we  believe  Booth's  body  is  here  in  my  office."  To  this  physi- 
cian, Dr.  Orlando  Scott,  the  present  writer  later  sent  a  few  queries. 
From  his  answers  it  seems  certain  that  he  looked  for  no  identifying 
marks  other  than  those  mentioned  in  Bates'  "Escape." 

In  1938  two  national  weeklies  carried  articles  and  pictures 
about  "the  mummy  that  might  be  Booth"— an  object  in  contrast 
with  which  P.  T.  Barnum's  "Feejee  Mermaid"  achieves  in  retro- 
spect a  kind  of  dignity.54  The  myth  persists. 


After  David  E.  George's  suicide  and  while  Enid  was  making 
holiday,  Tom  Hensley  of  the  El  Reno  Democrat  had  two  letters 
from  the  East.  One  was  signed  by  Laura  Ida  Booth,  who  claimed 
George  as  her  father;  the  other  was  from  Laura  Ida's  brother. 
Hensley  heard  no  more  from  the  brother;  but  from  Laura  Ida  he 
received  a  number  of  letters  about  the  estate  of  the  deceased. 
There  was,  as  we  have  learned,  no  estate— and  Laura  Ida's  interest 
waned.  Laura  Ida  was  a  vaudeville  performer  who  had  before  this 
given  out  that  she  was  a  daughter  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  and  ap- 
parently had  at  times  been  thus  billed  in  the  South. 

More  than  twenty  years  afterward— in  November  1926— the 
brother  burst  into  print.  McCager  W.  Payne,  a  half-brother  of 
Laura  Ida,  was  employed  as  a  guard  at  a  cotton  mill  in  Fayette- 
ville,  Tennessee.  To  the  Booth  survival  tale  he  added  many  new 
particulars.55 

"Bates  mentions    ("Escape";  p.  262)  a  high  thumb-joint  on  the  right  hand. 

M  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Feb.  19,  1938;  pp.  16,  17,  84.  Life,  July  11,  1938;  pp. 
4,  5,  7.  The  pictures  there  shown  may  be  compared  with  that  facing  p.  276  of  Bates' 
volume — The  Post  article  said  (p.  38)  that  the  mummy  had  been  exhibited  on  the 
campus  of  Northwestern  University  at  Evanston.  President  Walter  Dill  Scott  denied 
this  in  a  letter  to  the  present  writer. 

"An  interview  with  him  by  Robert  Hunt  occupied  nearly  a  page  (p.  3)  of  the 
Nashville  Tennessean  for  Nov.  14,  1926.  This  had  portraits  of  Laura  Ida  and 
McCager.  Mr.  Hunt,  later  connected  with  the  editorial  department  of  the  Nashville 


358  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

His  mother,  Payne  said,  had  been  Louisa  J.  Price,  daughter  of 
a  Cumberland  Presbyterian  minister.  She  was  first  married  to  Z. 
C.  Payne,  a  young  grocer  who  served  in  the  Civil  War  and  died 
in  1871.  After  that  for  a  time  she  made  her  living  as  a  needle- 
woman at  Sewanee,  where  she  worked  for  the  students  of  the 
University  of  the  South.  At  Sewanee  she  became  acquainted  with 
a  handsome  cabinetmaker  named  John  W.  Booth,  who  told  her  he 
was  a  "distant  cousin"  of  the  actor  who  had  shot  Lincoln. 

The  stranger,  according  to  McCager  (who  was  eight  years  old 
when  his  father  died),  was  "black  haired,  with  hair  of  the  kind 
that  curls  easily  if  allowed  to  grow  to  any  length."  He  had  "very 
dark  eyes  and  a  black  mustache,  slightly  curled  at  the  tips."  He 
weighed  "about  145  pounds";  he  was  "always  well  dressed." 
Though  he  got  along  well  enough  at  his  trade,  his  "dainty 
hands"  might  have  been  thought  out  of  keeping  with  it,  and  he 
was  distinctly  "a  theatrical  man." 

He  entertained  students  Saturday  nights  with  sleight  of  hand 
and  readings  from  plays— when  he  was  "moody,"  from  tragedies. 
He  liked  attention  at  home  or  in  public;  and  asked  no  fee  for  his 
performances.  He  was  "as  clever  and  tricky  a  hand  with  cards  as 
ever  shuffled  a  pack,"  and  so  supple  that  he  could  bend  back- 
ward with  a  pin  in  his  mouth  and  stick  the  pin  into  the  floor. 

On  February  25th,  1872,  Louisa  Payne  and  John  W.  Booth  were 
married  at  Sewanee  by  C.  C.  Rose,  a  justice  of  the  peace.56  One 
evening,  as  he  was  dressing  for  his  soiree,  John  W.  turned  abruptly 
to  his  wife,  pointed  to  "some  scars  on  his  leg,"  and  asked: 

"Miss  Lou,  do  you  know  what  made  those  knots?  /  got  them  in 
a  fall  on  the  stage  of  Ford's  Theatre  when  I  killed  Abraham  Lin- 
coln!" 

Soon  the  cabinetmaker  began  to  talk  of  a  fortune  that  was  to  be 
his— the  $100,000  put  up  by  the  group  that  planned  Lincoln's 
death.  The  man  killed  at  Garrett's  was  really,  he  said,  a  cousin— 

Banner,  kindly  sent  to  the  present  writer  a  copy  of  the  story  as  originally  printed. 
Extracts  from  it  were  given  in  the  Literary  Digest  for  Dec.  25,  1926  (pp.  40-41),  un- 
der the  heading  "When  Did  John  Wilkes  Booth  Die?" 

58  The  Tennessean  published  a  half-tone  cut  of  the  record,  from  a  photograph 
by  a  member  of  its  staff.  The  license  was  issued  by  the  county  clerk  of  Franklin 
County  on  Feb.  24.  Robert  Hunt  said  that  the  license  stands  recorded  in  the  clerk's 
office  at  Winchester. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  359 

mistaken  for  him.  He  himself  "hid  in  a  log  all  night"  before  ven- 
turing southward. 

Louisa  and  John  W.  and  the  boy  left  Sewanee  on  July  1st,  1872. 
In  Memphis  John  W.  took  a  laborer's  job  in  a  cottonseed  oil  mill 
and  rented  dingy  rooms  at  a  cheap  hotel.  Peering  through  the 
curtains,  Louisa  came  to  recognize  the  members  of  a  suspicious- 
looking  gang,  some  of  whom  were  forever  slouching  past  her  win- 
dows. Then  one  day  she  overheard  them  say,  "That's  where  he 
lives,  the  dirty  skunk."  "Run,"  she  called  to  McCager,  "run  tell 
your  pa  there's  men  here  to  kill  him!" 

When  the  boy  reached  the  mill,  John  W.  sent  word  back  to 
Louisa  that  "transportation  would  be  awaiting  her  within  the 
hour."  They  moved  to  a  boarding-house  in  southwestern  Mem- 
phis; and  for  a  space  they  breathed  freely.  Then  once  more  the 
slouching  figures  passed  to  and  fro.  There  was  a  desperate  return 
to  the  former  lodgings.  One  night  John  W.  did  not  come  home, 
and  Louisa  hurried  to  the  offices  of  the  mill.  Yes,  they  said,  he  had 
taken  his  pay  check  from  the  cashier.  Before  he  had  left  the  win- 
dow, two  men  had  approached  him.  They  had  bowed  and  tipped 
their  caps;  John  W.  had  returned  the  salute.  Louisa  and  Mc- 
Cager never  saw  him  again. 

With  assistance  from  a  church  in  Memphis,  the  two  went  back 
to  Sewanee.  Louisa  opened  a  steam  laundry.  McCager's  half-sister 
was  born,  and  was  named  Laura  Ida  Elizabeth  "after  a  sister  of 
Booth  and  a  sister  of  her  mother."  Following  Louisa's  death,  Mc- 
Cager and  Laura  Ida  lived  with  an  aunt.  Then  Laura  Ida,  only 
fourteen,  ran  away  with  the  John  Robinson  circus  and  became  a 
trapeze  artiste.  She  married  Charles  Levine,  went  with  him  to 
England;  and  had  a  son.  After  Levine's  death  she  married  Artman 
Driver,  professionally  known  as  Art  Norman,  with  whom  she 
played  several  vaudeville  circuits.  She  died  in  1925,  at  the  reputed 
age  of  fifty-three.  A  petite  creature,  "she  retained  her  youth  re- 
markably and  passed  for  a  much  younger  woman,  in  makeup  look- 
ing much  like  a  girl."  57  In  1920  she  and  her  husband  appeared  at 
Loew's  Theatre  in  Memphis  (home  town  of  Finis  Bates,  who 
was  then  living)  as  "Norman  and  Jeannette"  in  an  act  called  "Bits 
of  Versatility." 

67  Robert  Hunt  in  the  Tennessean. 


360  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

McCager  told  his  interviewer  that  in  1903  he  heard  from  an 
uncle,  Jerome  F.  Payne,  about  David  George's  suicide  at  Enid, 
Oklahoma,  and  of  George's  claim  to  be  John  Booth.  Then  Mc- 
Cager wrote  to  Tom  Hensley  of  El  Reno.  Laura  Ida  (said  Mc- 
Cager) went  to  Enid  with  Finis  L.  Bates  of  Memphis  but  de- 
clined to  join  McCager  in  a  suit  for  a  large  tract  of  land  belonging 
to  George,  for  she  thought  "a  50-50  attorney's  fee  was  too  high." 
McCager  in  1926  was  still  convinced,  however,  that  a  fortune- 
maybe  more  than  $100,000— awaited  him.  Unfortunately  he  had 
not  the  means  to  press  his  claim  at  law. 

In  1872  John  W.  Booth  of  Tennessee  was  a  cabinetmaker  in 
Sewanee,  was  married  there  on  February  25th,  and  did  not  leave 
until  July  1st.  So  he  could  not  have  been  St.  Helen,  who  was  in 
Texas  in  1872.58  He  could  hardly  have  been  George  in  any  case 
—at  least  on  the  basis  of  the  interview  with  McCager  Payne. 

In  1935  William  H.  Smathers,  United  States  senator  from  New 
Jersey,  was  approached  by  Charles  Wilson  Asburn  of  Atlantic  City, 
"a  grandson  of  Booth,"  in  an  attempt  to  get  title  to  "valuable 
Oklahoma  oil  lands  which  Booth  was  said  to  have  owned."  Asburn 
gave  Smathers  "letters  which  identified  him  as  the  son  of  Mrs.  Art 
Norman,  a  vaudeville  actress,  who  was  identified  as  Booth's 
daughter  before  her  death  in  1924  [?]."  Smathers  learned  that  pre- 
vious to  Laura  Ida's  death  Roy  J.  Wilson,  a  lawyer  in  Tennessee, 
had  looked  into  her  claim  to  Oklahoma  lands  but  had  found  that 
"Booth"  had  "willed  his  estate  to  a  Catholic  institution  whose 
claim  is  invulnerable."  59 

Though  he  decided  that  "the  title  could  not  be  challenged," 
Wilson  had  nevertheless  for  years  believed  that  Booth  "was  not 
slain  by  his  pursuers"  but  escaped  to  Tennessee,  where  he  was 

68  Bates  says  that  in  "the  spring  of  1872"  St.  Helen  was  at  Glen  Rose   ("Escape"; 

P-  7)- 

50  See  the  New  York  Post,  Apr.  15,  1935;  p.  20.  The  "lands  in  Oklahoma"  are  pre- 
sumably the  seven  hundred  acres  that  David  E.  George  did  not  own  but  bequeathed 
to  an  imaginary  nephew.  The  will  read:  "I  further  provide  that  in  the  event  that 
my  said  nephew  is  not  alive  then  I  give,  devise  and  bequeath  all  of  said  tract  of  land 
or  so  much  thereof  as  may  be  granted  to  me  by  the  Government  to  the  Sisters  of 
Charity  of  Dallas,  Texas"  (Dec.  31,  1902).  The  Mother  Superior  at  Dallas,  in 
answer  to  an  inquiry,  said  nothing  was  known  there  of  any  David  E.  George;  adding, 
"We  do  not  think  we  are  the  Sisters  interested."  (Campbell's  "Escape  and  Wander- 
ings"; p.  50.) 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  361 

married  to  a  "Miss"  Payne.  Wilson  wrote  to  Smathers:  "I  have 
proof  for  the  most  skeptical  that  Booth  committed  suicide  at  Enid, 
Okla.,  in  1904  [?]."  Was  Finis  Bates  the  source  of  Wilson's  proof? 
Even  while  this  volume  was  being  prepared  for  the  press,  a  new 
Booth  escape  story  appeared  in  a  letter  to  the  New  York  Sun 
(January  24th,  1940.)  The  letter,  signed  A.  L.  Q.  and  dated  New 
York,  January  23rd,  told  of  a  Mr.  Smythe  who 

.  .  .  lived  three  or  four  doors  from  Mrs.  Surratt  in  Washington.  At  Mr. 
Smythe's  house,  Mr.  Booth,  Dr.  Mudd  and  many  other  wealthy  and 
loyal  Southerners  met  and  discussed  the  plot. 

The  Southern  gentlemen  all  owned  and  rode  horses.  Mr.  Booth's  and 
Mr.  Smythe's  horses  were  identical.  On  the  night  that  President  Lincoln 
was  shot  a  Negro  held  Mr.  Booth's  horse — not  far  from  the  stage  door 
of  the  theater — and  Mr.  Smythe's  horse  stood  saddled,  bridled  and 
untied  at  Mr.  Smythe's  door  all  the  evening. 

When  word  came  that  the  President  was  shot  Mr.  Smythe  jumped 
on  his  horse  and  dashed  off  in  the  opposite  direction  from  that  planned 
for  Mr.  Booth. 

Mr.  Smythe's  children — a  boy  of  6  or  7  years,  and  a  girl  of  9  years — 
were  taken  to  New  York  to  their  uncle  on  Sixty-second  street,  near 
Third  avenue,  by  different  routes  and  his  wife  followed.  They  lived 
in  seclusion  there  for  many  years,  waiting  for  the  father  and  husband, 
but  he  never  came. 

He  was  the  man  who  was  shot  in  the  barn,  whose  horse  was  traced, 
as  had  been  planned,  and  who  hoped  to  deter  pursuit. 

Mr.  Smythe's  children  were  my  playmates  on  Sixty-second  street.  We 
were  told  by  them  all  about  their  flight  from  Washington,  and  about 
Dr.  Mudd.  Mr.  Booth  and  Mr.  Smythe  were  both  dark,  handsome  men 
with  long  black  mustaches.  One  was  scarcely  distinguishable  from  the 
other.  My  parents  lived  in  the  nearest  house  to  the  uncle,  Mr.  Smythe, 
on  Sixty-second  street.  His  house  is  a  four-story  brick  house,  the  only 
original  house  still  standing  on  the  north  side,  about  the  eighth  house 
from  Third  avenue.  It  was  owned  by  a  Mr.  McClusky. 

A  detailed  and  ingenious  story— with  not  only  "scarcely  distin- 
guishable" men  but  "identical"  horses!  Here  is  "a  Negro"  holding 
John  Booth's  horse  "not  far  from  the  stage  door"  of  Ford's, 
whereas  "Peanuts"  Burroughs  is  known  to  have  held  the  animal 
at  the  back  door.  The  only  "Mr.  Smythe"  in  the  Washington 
directory  for  1865  is  Perrence  Smythe,  carpenter,  residing  not  on 
H  Street  (where  Mrs.  Surratt  lived)  but  at  398  Twentieth  Street 


362  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

(west);  and  in  the  New  York  directory  for  1864-1865  and  1865- 
1866  there  appears  to  be  no  entry  under  Q  on  East  62nd  Street. 

But  even  if  there  were  a  Smythe  on  H  Street  and  a  Q (Quack- 

enbush,  Quantrell,  Quincy?)  on  East  62nd  Street  (then  in  a  re- 
gion of  scattered  houses  without  numbers),  that  still  would  not 
prove  that  Booth  survived. 

8. 

John  Booth  had  been  one  of  America's  most  eligible  bachelors, 
and  ladies  of  many  sorts  had  been  interested  in  him.  From  the 
tale  of  his  survival  was  developed  as  a  natural  corollary  the  notion 
that  he  married.  The  Booth  of  the  far  Pelew  Islands  introduced  to 
his  friend  Carroll  Jackson  Donelson  a  "female"  who  knew  all  but 
counted  the  world  well  lost.  In  the  rectory  of  Armstrong-Booth, 
the  picturesque  clergyman  of  Richmond  and  Atlanta,  dwelt  a 
wife  who  clung  to  him  despite  his  alleged  rhetorical  warning 
that  on  his  hands  was  the  blood  of  Lincoln.  Louisa  J.  (Price) 
Payne,  wedded  to  John  W.  Booth,  Tennessean  cabinetmaker 
and  card  sharp,  followed  him  blindly,  even  after  he  owned  to  mur- 
der. 

On  December  5th,  1885,  the  New  York  Tribune  in  a  front-page 
dispatch  from  Boston  said: 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  Booth  at  the  time  of  his  death  left  a 
widow  and  two  children,  yet  such  appears  to  be  the  fact. 

The  Tribune  then  told  that  an  anonymous  Bostonian  "who 
professes  to  be  well  acquainted  with  the  widow"  had  recently  sent 
to  her  a  newspaper  item  "to  the  effect  that  some  person  in  Ala- 
bama had  published  a  book  in  which  he  attempted  to  show  that 
John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin  of  President  Lincoln,  was  still 
alive."  With  the  item  went  a  note  to  the  widow  suggesting  that 
"anything  she  might  write"  by  way  of  comment  "would  prove 
interesting  to  the  public."  Her  reply  (as  quoted  by  the  Tribune) 
said: 

An  item  has  just  come  to  my  notice  of  some  man,  unknown,  in  Bir- 
mingham, Ala.,  who  has  a  desire  to  resurrect  John  Wilkes  Booth. 
Whoever  this  man  may  be,  let  me  warn  the  public  that  his  only  motive 
must  be  to  make  money;  for  as  sure  as  the  sun  shines  in  the  heavens, 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  363 

so  sure  is  John  Wilkes  Booth  dead.  I  myself  saw  him  buried,  saw  and 
examined  his  body  before  it  was  laid  in  its  final  resting-place.  He 
carried  marks  upon  his  body  known  only  to  his  family  and  intimate 
friends,  and  these  marks  were  identified  by  his  family.  We  all  know 
that  the  last  act  of  his  life  was  wrong.  We  also  know  we  should  not 
judge.  We  know  not  the  why  or  wherefore,  but  it  is  my  opinion  that 
those  of  us  who  live  long  enough  will  yet  learn  that,  although  it  was 
John  W.  Booth's  hands  that  struck  the  fatal  blow  that  ended  a  good 
man's  life,  yet  it  was  those  in  high  authority  who  were  the  head  of  a 
diabolical  conspiracy,  Andrew  Johnson  leader,  the  result  of  which 
steeped  several  families  in  the  deepest  of  woe,  and  left  a  nation  to 
mourn.  Although  not  generally  known,  J.  W.  Booth  left  a  family;  a 
wife  and  two  children,  a  daughter  and  a  son,  now  grown  to  womanhood 
and  manhood.  This  family  has  lived  in  seclusion  and  under  a  false 
name  for  twenty  years.  For  these  innocent  ones'  sakes,  let  their  dead 
alone  and  let  them  sorrow  in  peace.  I  beg  for  the  sake  of  the  Booth 
family,  now  mourning  over  the  death  of  the  mother  of  J.  Wilkes 
Booth,60  that  the  public  will  show  some  little  charity  and  leave  the 
wrongs  that  some  one  has  done  in  the  hands  of  a  higher  Power,  who,  in 
His  own  good  time,  will  make  all  things  right.  Let  the  dead  rest  for  the 
sake  of  the  living  and  the  innocent. 

The  detached,  impersonal  tone  of  this,  its  worn  phrases  and 
hollow  piety,  make  a  curious  impression.  Though  she  argues 
that  "the  why  or  wherefore"  of  Booth's  deed  was  unknown  and 
that  we  "should  not  judge,"  the  writer  presupposes  a  faction  of 
"those  in  high  authority,"  with  Andrew  Johnson  at  its  head,  guid- 
ing "a  diabolical  conspiracy."  A  point  of  interest  is  the  assurance 
that  John  Booth  is  really  dead.  Note  that  the  widow  speaks  of  "the 
last  act  of  his  life."  Any  survival  tale  is  here  expressly  denied. 

Shortly  after  the  appearance  of  this  front-page  story  in  the 
Tribune,  with  its  headline  THE  WIDOW  OF  J.  WILKES 
BOOTH,  Edwin  Booth,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Laurence  Hutton, 
wrote  indignantly: 

The  Tribune  contains  a  d — nable  lie  about  John — this  "widow"  is 
one  of  several  that  wrote  to  me  from  different  cities — just  after  his 
death,  one  of  whom — this  one,  I  suspect,  got  hold  of  poor  Rose  & 
robbed  her  of  all  the  money  she  had.  This  is  the  beginning  of  another 
blackmail  scheme,  of  which  I  had  some  intimation  from  a  Boston  law- 
yer some  months  ago.  That  horrible  business  will  never  be  buried — it 

60  Mary  Ann  (Holmes)  Booth  died  in  1885,  having  survived  her  husband  thirty- 
three  years. 


364  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

seems  to  be  one  of  the  Tribune's  favorite  topics;  I  frequently  see  allu- 
sions to  it  in  that  paper.61 

These  words  straight  from  the  heart  of  John  Booth's  famous 
brother  throw  a  convincing  ray  of  light  upon  a  singular  phase  of 
the  Great  American  Myth.  The  "widow"  subsided  from  the  first 
page  and  apparently,  so  far  as  concerned  the  news-reading  public, 
was  allowed  to  "sorrow  in  peace."  Possibly  Edwin  Booth  or  his  sis- 
ter Rose  (who  died  in  1889)  continued  to  be  made  aware  of  her. 

Laura  Ida  Elizabeth  Booth  of  Tennessee,  circus  aerialist  and 
vaudevillian,  was  not  John  Booth's  only  alleged  daughter.  In 
1890,  newspaper  correspondence  from  Columbus,  Ohio,  described 
"an  actress  whose  name  and  family  connection  impart  a  great  de- 
gree of  interest  in  her,"  then  at  the  Globe  Theatre  with  the  Boston 
Comic  Opera  Company  (not  to  be  confused  with  "The  Bos- 
tonians"). 

Her  maiden  name  was  Rita  Booth,  but  she  is  now  the  wife  of  Mr. 
Henderson,  the  director  of  the  company.  Mrs.  Booth-Henderson  says 
she  is  the  daughter  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin  of  Lincoln.  She 
remembers  her  father  distinctly,  although  but  8  years  old  at  the  time 
of  his  death.  She  was  asked  concerning  the  truth  or  falsity  of  the  re- 
cently published  statement  of  some  woman  living  in  the  South,  to  the 
effect  that  her  father  was  not  dead,  but  that  another  man  had  been 
shot  on  that  eventful  morning  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago.  She 
emphatically  affirmed  that  her  father  is  dead,  that  he  was  shot  at  that 
time,  and  that  she  saw  his  body  a  number  of  times  before  the  burial. 

Mrs.  Henderson  says  her  mother  died  about  three  years  since,  leaving 
her  as  the  only  child,  yet  she  says  she  has  two  half-brothers  living.  She 
was  born  in  Richmond,  Va.,  and  has  been  on  the  stage  more  or  less  for 
the  past  fifteen  years.  She  was  the  leading  lady  with  George  C.  Miln, 
the  preacher-actor,  a  few  years  since,  and  later  with  Grace  Hawthorne. 
She  made  her  first  appearance  on  the  stage  at  the  Boston  Globe  Theatre 
in  a  minor  part.  She  first  appeared  in  this  city  at  the  old  Comstock, 
now  Metropolitan  House,  about  seven  years  ago  with  Palmer  in  "The 
Danites."  She  appeared  later  with  the  Bennett  and  Moulton  Opera 
company  at  the  Grand  four  years  ago. 

Mrs.  Booth-Henderson  has  many  of  the  characteristic  features  so 
marked  in  the  Booth  family,  and  her  facial  resemblance,  as  well  as  her 
love  for  the  stage,  would  seem  to  be  strong  evidence  of  the  statement 

61  In  the  Hutton  Collection  at  Princeton  University. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  365 

she  makes.  She  says  she  has  a  diary  containing  much  important  mem- 
oranda of  her  father's  life,  and  papers  of  his,  and  some  time  she  will 
make  them  public.62 

Mrs.  Henderson's  acquaintances  in  the  profession  were  familiar 
with  her  claim  to  be  John  Booth's  daughter,  and  knew  she  some- 
times wore  a  breastpin  or  brooch  holding  a  portrait  head  of  John 
Booth.  She  was  married  to  Al  Henderson,  an  orchestra  leader  in 
road  companies,  and  often  the  two  were  able  to  get  engagements 
together.  Her  name  was  really  Ogarita.  On  April  12th,  1892,  she 
died  at  Binghamton,  New  York,  where  she  was  appearing  as  a 
member  of  the  Floy  Crowell  company.  "She  was  born  about  1858, 
we  believe,"  remarked  the  Clipper,  "and  her  mother  is  said  to 
have  been  a  once  noted  actress  in  the  Boston  Museum  stock  in 
the  old  days."  63 

On  the  15th  the  Times  and  World  of  New  York  carried 
sketches.64  The  World  termed  her  "a  clever  character  actress,"  and 
added  that  she  "often  declared  that  she  did  not  wish  to  rise  to 
any  eminence  in  the  dramatic  profession,  because  she  feared  her 
relationship  would  bring  unpleasant  notoriety."  "Several  people 
who  knew  Booth,"  said  the  World,  "claim  to  have  noted  in  her  the 
clear-cut  features,  the  big  ox  eyes,  the  curly  hair  and  high 
brow."  65 

Both  the  Times  and  the  Clipper  had  her  leaving  "a  child"  of 
about  seven;  the  World  said,  "Two  children,  one  a  girl  of  thirteen, 
survive  her";  the  Recorder,  two,  "one  a  girl  of  12."  The  World 
quoted  the  opinion  of  "a  theatrical  man"  that  the  "history  of  Mrs. 
Henderson's  mother  would  be  an  interesting  one"— and  said:  "It 
was  stated  at  the  Players'  Club  last  night  that  Edwin  Booth  was 
not  at  home." 

Late  in  1937  John  Booth's  marriage  was  the  theme  of  an  over- 
written and  chaotic  volume  of  five  hundred  pages,  "This  One  Mad 
Act,"  "the  unknown  story  of  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  his  family 

62  From  a  clipping  in  the  John  T.  Ford  Collection. 

83  Apr.  23,  1892;  p.  110.  The  New  York  Recorder  of  Apr.  15  said  (p.  2),  that  she 
was  "about  35  years  old." 

M  Times,  p.  5;  World,  p.  1    (with  portrait). 

66  /3ow7tis — a  classic  touch  for  a  Manhattan  sheet.  Truth  is,  the  Booth  eye  was 
rather  heavy-lidded  and  Oriental. 


366  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

—by  his  granddaughter."  The  author  was  a  Mrs.  Mann  Page  (for- 
merly Mrs.  Reuben  Merrifield),  who  had  been  a  staff  writer  for 
newspapers  and  under  the  name  Izola  Forrester  had  written  books 
for  girls.  In  "This  One  Mad  Act"  she  presented  herself  as  the 
daughter  of  Rita  (Ogarita)  Booth  and  George  W.  Hills,  Rita's 
first  husband;  and  as  the  adopted  daughter  of  George  Forrester  of 
Chicago,  whose  name  she  legally  assumed  in  January  1893. 

The  sprawling,  repetitious  form  of  the  narrative,  with  its  blun- 
ders, irrelevancies,  and  loose-jointed  structure,  may  have  been 
deliberate.  For  there  are  occasional  passages  of  no  little  charm 
(mainly  in  the  earlier  chapters),  and  throughout  are  the  ease  and 
fluency  of  one  who  has  been  used  to  filling  space. 

"This  One  Mad  Act"  introduces  to  us  a  grandmother  who  was 
born  either  in  London  (p.  172)  or  on  board  ship  off  Martha's 
Vineyard  during  a  storm  (p.  10).  The  date  of  her  birth,  as  given 
by  herself,  is  quoted  as  September  11th,  1839  (p.  172);  but  the 
date  of  her  death  is  given  (p.  44)  as  November  9th,  1887,  and  it 
is  said  (p.  49)  that  she  was  then  in  her  fifty-first  year.  She  was 
(pp.  5,  10)  the  child  of  Abram  Mills,  a  Yankee  sea  captain,  and 
Izola  Maria  Mendosa  of  Cordoba.  (But  on  p.  172  she  says  the 
mother's  name  was  Violetta.)  Reared  in  Baltimore  by  her  aunt, 
Mrs.  Henry  D'Arcy,  she  was  known  as  Izola  Martha  Mills  and  as 
Izola  Martha  D'Arcy.  She  also  called  herself  Izola  Violetta  Miller, 
Oriana  Collier,  Eleanore  St.  Clare,  and  Hero  Strong  (pp.  46,  106, 

174). 

In  1858  at  a  fancy-dress  ball  in  Richmond  Izola  Martha  D'Arcy, 
glittering  in  white  silk  and  diamonds,  met  John  Booth,  then,  ac- 
cording to  "This  One  Mad  Act,"  leading  man  of  the  Richmond 
Theatre's  stock  company.  It  was  on  both  sides  a  case  of  love  at  first 
sight.  Though  the  aunt's  husband  violently  opposed  the  match, 
they  soon  were  married.  John  continued  to  act  in  Richmond,  but 
established  a  retreat  for  his  wife  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah. 
There,  on  Qctober  23rd,  1859,  Ogarita  Rosalie  (Rita)  Booth  was 
born.  After  Lincoln's  murder,  Izola  Martha  Booth,  in  May  1865, 
fled  with  the  daughter  and  found  shelter  in  the  Baltimore  home 
of  John  H.  Stevenson,  who  had  been  a  friend  of  John  Booth's. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  367 

In  the  fall  of  1868  she  journeyed  to  California  to  meet  Booth! 

From  California  she  returned  to  Baltimore,  where  on  February 
27th,  1870,  her  child  Harry  was  born— that  is,  the  author  of 
"This  One  Mad  Act"  thus  gives  place  and  date,  but  the  record  in 
Izola  Martha's  Bible  named  February  27th,  1871,  as  the  date  and 
Boston  as  the  place.  By  1871  Izola  Martha  was  in  Boston.66  The 
narrative  then  grows  more  vague.  There  are  scattered  references 
to  photographs  of  Izola  Martha  in  the  roles  of  Isabella  ("Measure 
for  Measure"),  Lady  Macbeth,  and  Medea;  to  photographs  of  her 
friends  in  the  stock  company  of  the  Boston  Museum;  to  Izola 
Martha's  theatric  ways  and  speech.  She  is  pictured  coaching  Rita 
for  the  part  of  the  Lady  Anne  in  "Richard  III."  Everybody  is 
supposed  to  have  accepted  the  fact  that  she  had  been  of  the  stage. 

In  1882  she  removed  to  Canterbury,  Connecticut.  There  she 
queened  it,  aloof,  serene,  always  with  means  to  suit  her  needs— a 
mystery  to  her  country  neighbors.  She  lived  in  a  mansion  called 
Terrace  Hall,  with  great  windows,  silver-handled  doors,  a  cupola, 
and  a  ballroom  with  a  theater  in  it. 

Harry  emerges  in  small  parts  in  Boston— carries  a  spear  in  a 
production  of  "Othello"  by  the  elder  Salvini;  then  drifts  to  New 
York,  a  character  after  O.  Henry's  own  heart.  Improvident,  devil- 
may-care,  he  sings  in  saloons  and  all-night  restaurants,  passes  the 
hat.  He  is  known  to  all  the  hangers-on  from  the  Battery  to  Har- 
lem, is  friend  alike  of  Chuck  Connors  or  of  Oscar  Hammerstein. 
At  Kid  McCoy's  place  a  Southerner  tells  him  he  looks  like  John 
Booth— he  bows  and  says  there  must  be  a  mistake.  In  the  summer 
he  entertains  at  resort  hotels  or  turns  to  small-time  vaudeville. 
He  dies  in  1918,  taking  from  the  world  the  visible  evidence  that 
John  Booth  did  not  die  at  Garrett's. 

Who  did?  The  substitute  this  time  was  a  nameless  fellow-knight 
of  the  Golden  Circle.  He  parleyed  with  the  soldiers  while  Booth 
escaped.  He  purposed  to  surrender,  but  before  he  could  do  so,  he 
was  killed  by  a  "wild  shot."  All  who  aided  John  Booth  had  been 
members  of  the  Golden  Circle,  bound  by  oath  to  respond  to  his 
call.  A  group  photograph  of  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  proves 

60  The  Bible,  it  seems,  had  Mar.  23,  1870,  as  the  date  of  a  marriage  to  John  H. 
Stevenson — to  protect  Izola  Martha  by  letting  her  have  his  name. 


368  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

manifestly  to  be  of  Knights  Templar— but  the  discrepancy  is 
lightly  brushed  aside.  We  are  asked  to  see  John  Booth  in  the  rear 
center,  no  matter  what  knights  they  are. 

The  inconsistencies  between  this  unfoldment  and  the  statement 
of  the  "widow"  who  in  December  1885  addressed  the  public 
through  the  Tribune  are  evident.  But  there  likewise  are  incon- 
sistencies between  it  and  the  statement  by  Rita  Booth  in  1890. 

(a)  If  Rita  was  born  on  October  23rd,  1859,  she  was  not  eight  years 
old  in  April  1865,  but  about  five-and-a-half. 

(b)  If  Booth  escaped,  Rita  must  have  been  mistaken  in  supposing  that 
he  was  mortally  wounded  and  that  she  saw  his  body  "a  number  of 
times." 

(c)  If  Harry,  born  in  1870  (or  1871)  and  living  until  1918,  was  really 
"child  of  the  escape,"  Rita  was  wrong  in  saying  that  in  1887  (when 
her  mother  died)  she  was  the  only  child. 

(d)  If  Rita  was  born  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  she  was  incorrect  in 
giving  Richmond  as  her  birthplace. 

What  happened  to  John  Booth?  A  Colonel  Young  said  that  one 
Jimmy  Kelley  (whose  name  proved  to  be  Wells),  an  actor  friend  of 
John's,  had  received  from  John  a  series  of  letters  written  at  Bom- 
bay. But  the  letters  have  vanished.  Wells  told  Colonel  Young  (so 
said  the  Colonel)  that  John's  letters  ceased  in  1879,  and  that  John 
died  at  Bombay  in  that  year. 

It  would  be  a  lengthy  task  to  point  out  in  detail  all  that  is 
wrong  in  "This  One  Mad  Act."  But  we  can  take  one  of  the  main 
threads  of  the  story  and  have  a  look  at  its  credibility. 

Let  us  begin  with  Augustin  Daly.  "This  One  Mad  Act"  states 
that  he  was  in  Chicago  in  1 894  and  there  said  that  after  Lincoln's 
murder  those  who  had  known  John  Booth  at  all  well  were  in 
danger;  that  Junius  Brutus  II  and  John  S.  Clarke  were  arrested; 
and  that  within  a  few  years  Edwin  was  shot  at  while  playing  in 
Cincinnati.  So  it  is  not  surprising  (according  to  Daly  in  "This 
One  Mad  Act")  that  Izola  Martha's  whereabouts  around  that  pe- 
riod were  uncertain,  for  she  had  been  in  hiding.  She  had  been 
married  to  Booth  in  the  North,  Daly  explained,  probably  because 
Edwin  Booth  recently  had  bought  a  house  at  Cos  Cob,  Connec- 
ticut, and  the  house  was  unoccupied  because  Edwin  was  at  that 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  369 

time  in  Australia.  Daly  is  also  said  to  have  left  an  order  for  three 
complimentary  seats  for  "Much  Ado  about  Nothing,"  then  run- 
ning in  Chicago  with  Ada  Rehan  and  Mrs.  Gilbert  in  the  cast. 

Of  course,  Daly  could  not  have  said  these  things.  He  knew  that 
Edwin  Booth  was  shot  at  not  in  Cincinnati  but  in  Chicago,  at 
McVicker's  Theatre;  and  not  within  a  few  years  but  on  April 
23rd,  1879,  fourteen  years  after  Lincoln's  murder.  The  shooting 
was  done  by  Mark  Gray,  a  young  clerk  from  St.  Louis,  whose 
grievance  was  that  Edwin  "was  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  his  at- 
tainment of  histrionic  glory."  67  It  had  not  the  remotest  connec- 
tion with  what  John  had  done. 

The  year  1894  has  been  called  by  his  brother,  Judge  Daly,  "one 
of  the  hardest  working  years"  in  Augustin  Daly's  life.68  Daly, 
after  a  long  absence  in  England,  was  busy  in  New  York.  At  the 
end  of  September  two  of  his  companies  went  on  the  road  for 
brief  tours.  Miss  Rehan,  who  did  not  arrive  from  England  until 
August,  headed  one  company,  which  gave  "As  You  Like  It,"  "The 
Last  Word,"  "Love  on  Crutches,"  "The  School  for  Scandal,"  "The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,"  and  "Twelfth  Night."  Mrs.  Gilbert  was 
not  with  Miss  Rehan  but  in  the  "company  of  comedians,"  which 
also  included  James  Lewis,  Henry  Dixey,  William  Gilbert,  Percy 
Haswell,  and  Laura  Hansen.  Miss  Rehan's  first  performance  of 
Beatrice  in  "Much  Ado  about  Nothing"  was  at  Daly's  Theatre 
in  New  York  on  the  snowy  night  of  December  23rd,  1896.  Hence 
she  could  not  have  been  appearing  in  that  role  under  Daly's  man- 
agement at  Chicago  in  1894.69 

Why,  at  the  height  of  the  midwinter  theatrical  season,  would 
John  Booth,  member  of  the  Richmond  Theatre's  stock  company, 
travel  to  Cos  Cob,  Connecticut,  to  be  married?  The  officiating 
clergyman— according  to  the  book— was  the  Rev.  Peleg  Weaver  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  at  North  Cos  Cob.  Peleg  Weaver 
was  a  striking  figure.  Both  of  his  arms  had  been  blown  away  in 
an  explosion  and  he  wore  cork  arms;  but  he  was  able  to  turn  the 
leaves  of  his  pulpit  Bible  with  his  mouth.  He  was  not,  however,  at 

67  Winter,  "Life  and  Art  of  Edwin  Booth";  p.  128.  New  York  Tribune,  Apr.  24, 
1879;  p.  1 — Apr.  25;  p.  1 — Apr.  26;  p.  4. 

68  J.  F.  Daly,  "The  Life  of  Augustin  Daly";  p.  580. 

69  Winter,  "Ada  Rehan:  A  Study";  p.  165.  Programmes  and  box-office  records  in 
the  Daly  Collection,  Brander  Matthews  Dramatic  Museum,  Columbia   University. 


370  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

North  Cos  Cob  in  1859;  it  was  not  until  1871  that  he  became 
pastor  of  the  "Horse  Neck  Society"  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  there.70 

In  1859,  and  for  years  thereafter,  Edwin  Booth  had  no  house 
in  Cos  Cob  to  lend  to  his  brother.  On  August  16th,  1867,  farm 
land  along  the  shore  at  Studwell's  Point  was  bought  for  $3,600 
from  Edward  Mead  of  Greenwich  by  Charles  M.  Barras,  theatrical 
agent  and  manager,  a  translator  and  adapter  of  plays,  and  author 
of  "The  Black  Crook,"  which  made  such  a  stir  at  Niblo's  Garden 
in  1866.  It  was  Barras'  "fine  marine  villa"  Cedar  Cliff  (built  on 
the  Mead  land),  with  the  something  more  than  eight  acres  around 
it,  that  Edwin  Booth  bought  for  his  second  wife,  Mary  McVicker, 
on  August  13th,  1872.71 

Furthermore,  Edwin  Booth  in  January  1859  was  not  in  Aus- 
tralia but  in  the  United  States.  It  was  in  1854  he  visited  Australia, 
Laura  Keene  being  in  the  company.  A  letter  written  by  him  from 
London  on  December  12th,  1880,  gives  an  account  of  his  life  and 
career.  In  it  he  says:  "Went  as  a  'star'  to  Australia  1854— managed 
the  Royal  Hawaiian  theatre,  Honolulu,  Sandwich  Islands  in  1855. 
In  '56  began  a  series  of  professional  tours  through  the  United 
States."  72 

The  whole  recital  of  John  Booth's  alleged  marriage  as  given  in 
"This  One  Mad  Act"  is  incredible.  Although  there  would  have 
been  no  reason  for  concealment,  the  Booth  family  knew  nothing 
of  any  such  marriage.  No  such  marriage  is  to  be  found  recorded 
among  marriages  in  Greenwich  township  from  1855  to  1865. 
Neither  church  records  nor  personal  records  of  the  Rev.  Peleg 
Weaver  are  offered  in  proof,  and  there  seems  to  be  no  marriage 

70  S.  P.  Mead,  "Ye  Historie  of  Ye  Town  of  Greenwich";  pp.  435-437. — In  a  letter 
to  the  present  writer,  the  Rev.  Roby  F.  Day  stated  that  the  Memorial  Roll  of  the 
Eastern  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  shows  that  the  Rev.  Peleg 
Weaver  united  with  the  New  York  Conference  in  1853  and  died  in  1882.  "This  One 
Mad  Act"  has  Mr.  Forrester  in  1904  searching  in  "old  records"  at  "the  headquarters 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church"  in  New  York.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Weaver's  church 
was  the  Methodist  Protestant,  whose  headquarters  were  in  Baltimore. 

71  Mary  Frances  McVicker  (nee  Runnion)  was  married  to  Edwin  Booth  at  Long 
Branch  in  1869.  He  had  married  Mary  Devlin  in  July  i860.  She  died  in  February 
1863. — Greenwich  Land  Record,  vol.  33,  p.  365;  vol.  40,  pp.  300-301;  vol.  45,  pp. 
48-49.  Edwin  sold  the  property  in  1876.  The  house  was  razed  in  1940. 

72  Original  in  the  Robinson  Locke  Collection,  New  York  Public  Library. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  371 

certificate  extant.  Izola  Martha  is  supposed  to  have  had  a  wedding 
ring  with  the  initials  J.W.B.— but  it  was  interred  with  her.  After 
the  mysterious  loss  or  destruction  of  so  many  pages  of  Izola 
Martha's  "diaries,"  those  remaining  cannot  aid  us  much.  One 
(as  reproduced  in  the  book)  carries  an  allusion  to  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Weaver's  kindness  after  the  death  of  the  alleged  husband.  And 
Rita  Booth  "emphatically  affirmed"  that  the  death  occurred  in 
1865. 

A  home  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley  region  in  1859  would  have 
been  most  inconvenient  for  a  stock-company  player  in  Richmond. 
Time-tables  of  that  day  show  that  to  go  from  Richmond  to  Wood- 
stock, by  way  of  Gordonsville  and  Manassas  Junction,  required 
the  use  of  three  railways  and  took  over  eleven  hours.  Besides, 
John  Booth  was  not  the  leading  man  of  the  Richmond  Theatre 
stock  company.  He  was  doing  small  parts  and  not  even  using  the 
Booth  name. 

Among  the  anecdotes  in  "This  One  Mad  Act"  that  are  em- 
ployed to  bolster  its  thesis  is  one  about  the  well-known  actor  Wil- 
fred Clarke,  son  of  Asia  Booth  Clarke,  John  Booth's  sister.  Once 
in  London,  it  is  said,  the  grandmother,  Mrs.  J.  B.  Booth  (Mary 
Holmes  Booth)  was  driving  with  Asia,  John  McCullough,  Edwin, 
and  Wilfred,  when  suddenly,  as  a  man  approached,  the  grand- 
mother screamed  and  Edwin  cried,  "My  God,  it's  John!"  Edwin 
got  out  and  talked  with  the  man.  The  grandmother  also  attempted 
to  do  so  but  was  prevented  by  McCullough. 

Mr.  Clarke  kindly  explained  to  the  present  writer  that  the 
grandmother  was  not  present,  that  no  one  screamed,  that  Edwin 
did  not  cry,  "My  God,  it's  John!"  The  man  called  Edwin  "Ned"; 
and  Mr.  Clarke  took  him  to  be  some  actor  whom  Uncle  Edwin 
knew.  The  genesis  of  the  falsified  report  Mr.  Clarke  traced  to 
Blanche  Booth  (Blanche  De  Bar.)  She  had  told  him  that  in  1902 
in  Oklahoma  a  man  stood  in  the  corridor  outside  her  hotel  room 
and  called  to  her.  She  thought  him  a  "stagedoor  Johnnie,"  but 
after  he  had  gone  she  fell  to  thinking  that  the  voice  was  the  voice 
of  John  Booth.  "I  then  told  her  my  story,"  said  Mr.  Clarke,  "to 
prove  how  easily  one  could  be  mistaken.  I  never  dreamed  that  she 


372  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

would  give  it  to  a  newspaper  and  in  such  a  garbled  manner."  73 
A  variant  of  Blanche's  story  is  that  the  stranger  thrust  under  the 
door  a  card  on  which  was  written  the  name  John  Wilkes  Booth. 
Perhaps  he  was  D.  E.  George.74  William  Seymour,  who  knew 
Blanche  De  Bar  and  corresponded  with  her,  stated  75  that  she  was 
the  daughter  of  J.  B.  Booth  II  and  Clementina  De  Bar,  sister  of 
Ben  De  Bar.  The  New  York  Mirror  in  an  obituary  sketch  of  J.  B. 
Booth  II  said:76  "The  published  statement  that  Blanche  De  Bar  is 
his  daughter  is  untrue.  That  lady  is  not  related  to  the  Booth 
family  except  by  the  marriage  of  her  mother." 

The  author  of  "This  One  Mad  Act"  always  refers  to  Blanche 
De  Bar  as  Blanche  Dis  De  Bar  Booth,  and  speaks  of  Ben  Dis  De 
Bar.  This  comes  from  a  strange  confusion  with  the  name  of  Ann 
O'Delia  Diss  De  Bar,  used  by  a  fraudulent  spirit  medium,  known 
also  as  Ann  O'Delia  Salomon  and  Editha  Lolita  Montez.  This 
woman  was  sentenced  in  New  York  City  in  May  1888  to  a  term 
of  six  months  in  the  penitentiary  for  conspiring  to  defraud  the 
wealthy  Luther  R.  Marsh  of  his  property.  The  affair  was  a  local 
cause  celebre. 


An  especially  persistent  falsehood  has  connected  the  names  of 
John  Booth  and  John  Y.  Beall.  In  September  1864,  Beall— repre- 
sented to  be  an  officer  in  the  navy  of  the  Confederate  States— was 
involved  with  one  Bennett  Burley  in  an  attempt  to  free  the  2,500 
Confederate  prisoners  on  Johnson's  Island  in  Lake  Erie.  Supplied 
with  horses  and  arms,  most  of  the  escaped  men  were  to  fight  their 
way  across  Ohio  to  Wheeling  and  thence  into  Virginia.  Others 
would  capture  the  Michigan,  stationed  at  Johnson's  Island  and 
the  only  naval  vessel  that  the  treaty  with  Canada  permitted  on  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  would  then  proceed  to  burn  Sandusky,  Cleve- 
land, and  Buffalo.  The  foolish  plot  came  to  nothing  and  on  Feb- 
ruary 24th,  1865,  Beall  was  hanged  on  Governor's  Island  in  New 
York  Harbor  as  a  spy  and  guerrilla.  A  number  of  distinguished 

73  From  a  written  statement  by  Mr.  Clarke. 

74  See  Babcock,  "Booth  and  the  Spirit  of  Lincoln";  p.  287  and  note. 

75  New  York  Tribune,  Jan.  13,  1917;  p.  8. 
70  Sept.  22,  1883;  p.  6. 


SOUVENIRS  OF  JOHN  BOOTH 

(Left)  Gold  head  of  die  light  walking-stick  so  often  carried  by  him  and  shown 
in  photographs  of  him.  It  is  heavily  chased  and  bears  in  a  cartouche  the  in- 
scription: Neil  Bryant  to  J.  W.  Booth.  (Right)  Ring  of  antique  dull  gold, 
with  initials  J.  W.  B.  engraved  on  both  sides  of  it.  The  ring  has  been  broken 
—apparently  to  remove  it  from  the  finger. 

Originally  owned  by  Dr.  J.  A.  Booth,  these  came  into  the  possession  of  Mr. 
C.  F.  Dahlen,  by  whose  courtesy  they  have  been  photographed 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  373 

Northerners  appealed  to  the  President  to  save  Beall  from  the  gal- 
lows, but  this  was  a  case  in  which  Lincoln  absolutely  refused  to 
interfere. 

Beall's  execution  has  been  called  the  cause  of  Lincoln's  murder. 
Booth  and  Beall,  it  was  said,  had  been  schoolmates  (or  fellow- 
students  at  the  University  of  Virginia)  and  inseparable  comrades 
—some  versions  had  it  that  the  two  were  cousins  and  that  Booth 
was  devoted  to  Beall's  sister  Lily.  The  story  went  that  the  night 
before  Beall's  execution,  Booth,  with  Senator  Hale,  John  W.  For- 
ney, and  Washington  McLean,  drove  at  midnight  to  the  Executive 
Mansion.  The  President  was  awakened  and  Booth,  kneeling  be- 
fore him  and  clasping  his  knees,  pleaded  for  Beall's  life.  Moved 
to  tears,  Lincoln  took  Booth's  hands  and  promised  to  pardon 
Beall.  Nevertheless  Beall  was  hanged,  for  Seward  threatened  to 
resign  if  Lincoln  granted  the  pardon. 

In  fact,  Booth  and  Beall  never  met.  John  W.  Forney  declared 
that  he  never  met  Booth  and  that  the  story  of  the  midnight  call 
was  a  lie.  Booth  never  attended  the  University  of  Virginia.  So  far 
as  we  can  tell,  he  was  never  in  the  Executive  Mansion.  And  he 
wrote  in  the  famous  diary:  "I  knew  no  private  wrong.  I  struck  for 
my  country  and  that  alone." 

Isaac  Markens,  who  devoted  years  to  the  study  of  this  matter, 
exposed  the  story's  falsity  in  his  "President  Lincoln  and  the  Case 
of  John  Y.  Beall"  (1911).  But  several  years  later  Lyon  G.  Tyler 
of  Virginia  renewed  the  discredited  charge  that  Booth  shot  Lin- 
coln because  Lincoln  "had  hung  that  great  and  noble  Confederate 
naval  officer,  John  Y.  Beall,  against  all  civilized  rules  of  warfare," 
after  promising  Booth  "to  treat  Captain  Beall  as  a  prisoner  of 
war."  77 

Alger's  "Life  of  Edwin  Forrest"  tells78  a  story  of  John  McCul- 
lough's  rooming  with  Booth  at  the  National  Hotel  in  Washington 
immediately  before  the  murder.  One  night  he  was  suddenly  awak- 
ened by  tears  dropping  upon  his  face  from  the  eyes  of  some  one 
standing  beside  him.  Looking  up,  he  saw  Booth. 

''''Magazine  of  History,  vol.  43,  no.  1  (1931).  See  also  Southern  Historical  Society 
Papers,  vol.  xxxii;  pp.  99-101.  G.  A.  Foote:  "Old  Watering  Places  in  Warren  County" 
(pamphlet). 

78  ii,  146. 


374  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

"Why,  what  is  the  matter?"  he  asked. 

"My  God,"  replied  Booth  ("already  burdened  with  his  mon. 
strous  crime,  and  speaking  in  a  tone  of  long-drawn  melancholy  in- 
describably pathetic")— "my  God,  how  peacefully  you  were  sleep- 
ing! /  cannot  sleep." 

In  a  telegram  to  John  T.  Ford  from  Montreal,  dated  June  2nd, 
1865,  McCullough  said: 

I  left  Washington  on  Monday  evening,  March  26th,  and  have  not 
been  there  since. 

This  was  accepted  as  evidence  of  the  same  validity  as  if  the  fact 
had  been  testified  to  by  McCullough  in  person  on  the  witness 
stand.79  McCullough  could  not  have  been  at  the  National  Hotel 
"two  or  three  nights  before  the  assassination." 

In  McClure's  Magazine  for  December  1923  an  article,  "The 
Lincoln  I  Knew,"  gave  the  recollections  of  Joseph  Christian  as 
reported  by  Test  Dalton  and  E.  Albert  Apple.  This  Christian 
was  represented  to  have  been  Lincoln's  "valet  coachman"  and  to 
have  left  the  President's  service  about  a  month  before  the  assassina- 
tion. He  told  of  meeting  and  drinking  with  Booth  at  a  hostelry  in 
Baltimore  on  the  afternoon  of  April  14th.  Whether  Christian  im- 
posed on  the  authors  or  they  invented  him  is  a  question  that  may 
never  be  settled;  but  it  is  certain  that  John  Booth  was  in  Wash- 
ington all  day  on  the  14th,  that  Lincoln  never  had  a  "valet  coach- 
man," and  that  the  coachman  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  as  Wash- 
ington directories  attest,  was  the  rotund  Irishman  Francis  P. 
Burke. 

Superstitions  of  divers  kinds  gathered  around  Lincoln  after  his 
death.  People  spoke,  for  example,  of  the  bright  star  that  appeared 
on  the  day  of  his  second  inaugural  ceremony.  Smith  Stimmel  was 
in  the  escort  from  the  Union  Lig^ht  Guard  that  followed  the  Presi- 
dent's  carriage  as  it  returned  to  the  Executive  Mansion.  Along 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  he  noticed  the  crowd  gazing  upward,  and 
he  looked  toward  the  quarter  of  the  heavens  at  which  some  were 

79  Conspiracy  Trial,  June  8,  1865. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  375 

pointing.  ".  .  .  There  in  plain  view,"  he  says,  "shining  out  in  all 
her  beauty,  was  the  planet  Venus.  It  was  a  little  after  midday  at 
the  time  I  saw  it,  possibly  near  one  o'clock;  the  sun  seemed  to  be 
a  little  west  of  the  meridian,  the  planet  a  little  east."  80 

It  was  all  due  to  the  clear  atmosphere  and  other  favoring  con- 
ditions, Stimmel  thought.  But  the  superstitious  ascribed  various 
meanings  to  it  and  Lincoln's  murder  gave  it,  in  their  minds,  a 
peculiar  significance. 

Then  there  was  the  "mystic  number"  seven,  whose  connection 
with  Lincoln  so  impressed  Osborn  H.  Oldroyd  that  he  wrote  a 
brochure  about  it.  Oldroyd  mentioned  that: 

Lincoln's  Christian  name  and  surname  have  each  seven  letters. 
Lincoln  was  sworn  into  the  House  of  Representatives  on  December  7th, 
1847. 

He  was  elected  by  the  people  seven  times — four  times  to  the  Illinois 
Legislature,  once  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  twice  to  the  Presi- 
dency. 

He  voted  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso  forty- two  times  (7  x  6). 
He  was  shot  on  April  14th  (7  x  2). 
His  body  left  Washington  on  April  21st  (7  x  3). 

There  was  more  of  the  same  thing,  carefully  selected  to  fit! 

Superstition  appeared,  too,  in  regard  to  the  Military  Commis- 
sion which  tried  Mrs.  Surratt,  Doctor  Mudd,  Herold,  Paine, 
Atzerodt,  Spangler,  Arnold,  and  O'Laughlin.  Students  of  the  Con- 
spiracy Trial  know  that  the  Commission  was  an  anomalous  body 
without  proper  jurisdiction  and  that  its  procedure  and  findings 
were  open  to  the  severest  criticism. 

A  rumor  sprang  up  that  within  a  few  years  all  the  members  of 
the  Commission  died  violent  deaths.  Lew  Wallace,  a  member  of 
the  Commission  (and  better  known  as  the  author  of  "Ben  Hur") 
in  his  autobiography  (1906)  stated  that  in  1892,  twenty-seven  years 
after  the  trial,  all  the  members  of  the  Commission  were  living  ex- 
cept Colonel  Tompkins,  who  died  at  seventy-three,  and  General 
Hunter,  "who  lived  to  over  four-score  years." 

Jesse  W.  Weik  published  a  curious  story  that  had  been  told  him 

80  North  Dakota  Historical  Quarterly,  January  1927;  pp.  27-28. 


376  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

by  a  Miss  Porterfield.  He  said  that  in  April  1865  she  was  a  school- 
girl, and  she  and  her  mother  had  been  making  a  stay  in  Washing- 
ton, where,  through  a  friend  who  lived  at  the  National  Hotel,  she 
became  acquainted  with  John  Booth.  On  the  morning  of  the  13th 
she  met  him  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  he  inquired  whether 
she  was  studying  Latin.  "Yes,"  she  answered.  Then  he  asked:  "Is 
tyrannis  spelled  with  two  ns  or  two  rs?" 

Miss  Porterfield  obligingly  wrote  this  down  for  Weik  and  it 
was  printed  in  full  in  the  Century  Magazine  for  February  1913. 
Inasmuch  as  Weik  thought  it  worth  preserving,  it  is  briefly  al- 
luded to  here. 

How  was  Lincoln  carried  from  the  box  to  the  Petersen  house? 
Some  said  on  a  shutter,  others  said  in  the  rocking  chair  in  which 
he  had  been  sitting.  There  is  no  evidence  for  either.  Who  carried 
him?  Many  have  been  named.  Major  Rathbone  and  a  Major 
Potter,  "assisted  by  others,"  said  the  Intelligencer  (April  15th), 
which  later  (May  4th)  mentioned  "Gustavus  Clark,  formerly  of 
Boston"  as  "one  of  those  who  assisted."  B.  W.  Loring,  at  that 
time  a  lieutenant  in  the  United  States  Navy,  stated  that  he  was 
one  of  four  who  carried  the  President  but  he  did  not  specify  the 
others.81  It  has  been  said  that  Thomas  C.  Gourlay,  the  Sir  Edward 
Trenchard  of  the  evening,  was  among  those  that  helped,  and  that 
Col.  Otto  J.  Downing,  of  Dixon,  Illinois,  was  "one  of  the  five  who 
bore  Mr.  Lincoln  across  the  street."  82  A  rather  strong  case  has 
been  made  out  for  Jacob  Soles,  Jabez  Griffiths,  John  Corey,  and 
William  Sample,  artillerymen  from  Pennsylvania,  who  were  said 
to  have  been  joined  by  two  other  soldiers.83 

It  has  been  stated  with  positiveness  that  Booth,  if  he  had  been 
unable  to  enter  the  box,  would  have  shot  Lincoln  from  a  "posi- 
tion in  the  wings."  This  is  a  dubious  theory.  Booth  wished  to 
strike  a  mortal  blow— to  strike  with  certainty.  He  used  with 
that  intent  a  weapon  so  small  that  it  could  be  carried  unobserved 
in  his  palm.    The  Deringer  was  for  close  quarters;  its  effective 

"New  York  Tribune,  Apr.  13,  1897. 

82  Clark,  "Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  National  Capital";  pp.  104,  108. 

83  New  York  Times,  Feb.  8,  1931. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  377 

range  was  limited.  An  expert  in  antique  firearms  (J.  K.  Scofield 
of  the  National  Rifle  Association  of  America)  has  given  this  opin- 
ion to  the  present  writer:  "With  such  a  short  barrel  and  the 
added  disadvantage  of  an  extremely  short  sighting  radius,  I  doubt 
that  you  could  depend  on  hitting  a  target  as  large  as  a  man  at  any 
range  longer  than  twenty  or  thirty  yards."  Lincoln  in  this  case 
would  have  been  a  poor  target.  It  is  not  at  all  plausible  that 
Booth,  running  the  chance  of  being  immediately  seized,  would 
have  drawn  a  larger  weapon  and  attempted  to  kill  the  President 
from  across  the  stage. 

"Wilkes  Booth's  Private  Confession  of  the  Murder  of  President 
Lincoln,"  a  pamphlet  issued  in  London  in  1865,  was  an  absurdity 
of  British  origin.  The  "Confession"  purported  to  be  from  a  manu- 
script dated  April  25th  at  Garrett's  Farm  and  entrusted  to  a 
"friend  and  accomplice"  who  "managed  to  make  his  escape"  from 
Garrett's  "at  the  time  of  Harrold's  [Herold's]  capture  and 
Booth's  death."  Having  reached  Liverpool,  this  nameless  associate 
left  the  packet  in  the  hands  of  a  third  person,  who  promised  not 
to  open  it  in  less  than  three  days  after  the  "accomplice"  had  quit 
England.  At  the  end  of  that  interval  (the  "accomplice"  being 
en  route  to  St.  Petersburg)  the  seal  was  broken  and  the  "Confes- 
sion" given  to  the  printer. 

Amazing  Negro  dialect  is  introduced  into  this  effusion,  and  the 
murder  is  thus  described: 

I  was  at  once  confronted  by  a  gentleman  in  the  box,  who  asked 
me  if  I  knew  who  [sic]  I  was  intruding  upon.  I  bowed  and  drew  back. 
I  then  levelled  a  pistol  with  my  left  hand  and  fired.  ...  In  my  fall  the 
spur  of  my  boot  must  have  caught  something,  for  my  leg  was  twisted, 
and  when  I  fell  upon  the  stage  I  was  afraid  it  was  broken.  I  was  thrown 
forward  but  by  a  great  effort  I  managed  to  recover  myself.  "Sic  semper 
tyrannis!"  I  exclaimed.  .  .  . 

Following  the  "Confession"  is  a  section  headed  "Capture,  Death, 
and  Burial  of  Wilkes  Booth,"  pirated  from  Townsend.  The  entire 
pamphlet  was  translated  into  French  (Paris,  1865),  with  the  ad- 
dition of  a  report  of  the  Conspiracy  Trial  ("Proces  des  complices"). 

Conflicting  newspaper  stories  have  appeared  as  to  who  was  the 


378  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

tenant  of  the  hall  bedroom  in  Petersen's  house,  where  Lincoln 
lay  through  that  grievous  night.  Some  have  conveyed  the  impres- 
sion it  was  John  Matthews;  others  have  named  Thomas  Proctor,  a 
retired  lawyer  of  New  York,84  who,  though  claiming  the  room, 
placed  it  up  two  flights  of  stairs.  (It  was  admitted  that  Proctor, 
when  he  publicly  advanced  the  claim,  was  of  failing  memory.) 
Both  Matthews  and  Proctor— who  in  1865  was  a  clerk  in  the  War 
Department— were  occupying  rooms  at  Petersen's;  but  the  hall 
bedroom,  so  often  exhibited  to  visitors  through  the  years,  was 
rented  at  that  time  by  another  clerk  of  the  War  Department,  Wil- 
liam T.  Clark,  previously  of  the  Thirteenth  Massachusetts.  This 
was  fully  shown  by  his  sister  Mrs.  H.  Estes  Wright  of  Boston  and 
his  niece  Mrs.  Maud  O'Leary  of  Wellesley  Hills,  Massachusetts.85 

Many  doctors  were  in  attendance  that  night.  Assistant  Surgeon 
Charles  A.  Leale,  U.S.V.,  a  young  man  in  civilian  dress,  appears 
to  have  been  first  to  reach  the  box.  Dr.  Charles  S.  Taft,  an  army 
surgeon  in  uniform,  seems  to  have  been  next— lifted  up  from  the 
stage.  Dr.  A.  F.  A.  King  of  Washington  also  was  there.  Later,  Dr. 
Robert  K.  Stone,  the  Lincolns'  family  physician,  and  Surgeon- 
General  J.  K.  Barnes,  were  summoned  to  Petersen's.86  Doctor 
Stone  testified  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  sent  for  him  immediately  after 
the  shooting.  Maunsell  B.  Field,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, brought  Doctor  Hall,  "one  of  the  most  distinguished  surgeons 
in  the  District,"  to  the  Petersen  house.87  Official  minutes  of  the 
President's  condition  from  eleven  o'clock  that  night  were  kept 
by  Dr.  Ezra  W.  Abbott.  The  Century  Magazine  for  February  1893 
published  an  account  written  by  Taft  from  notes  made  directly 
after  the  events  by  direction  of  Secretary  Stanton.  Leale  issued  in 
his  later  years  a  privately  printed  brochure  containing  the  text  of 
an  address  in  which  he  presented  his  own  special  and  rather  ego- 
tistical version,  declaring  he  had  prolonged  Lincoln's  life. 

84  New  York  Times,  Oct.  1-5,  1921. 

85  O.  H.  Oldroyd,  "The  Assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln";  pp.  37-38.  New  York 
Times,  Oct.  4,  1921. 

88  J.  E.  Buckingham,  "Reminiscences  and  Souvenirs";  pp.  20-24. 
"Field,  "Memories  of  Many  Men";  pp.  321-329.  Baker,  "History  of  the  United 
States  Secret  Service";  pp.  468-471. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  379 

10. 

The  distinguished  French  actor,  Edmond  Got,  societaire  of  the 
Comedie  Franchise  of  Paris,  from  1840  to  1892  kept  a  journal 
which  was  published  in  1910,  nine  years  after  his  death.  Under 
date  of  April  30th,  1865,  it  has  a  remarkable  entry  which,  put  into 
English,  reads  as  follows: 

The  assassination  of  President  Lincoln — a  few  days  after  the  capture 
of  Richmond  and  therefore  just  about  at  the  very  end  of  the  intermi- 
nable War  of  Secession,  in  which  victory  went  to  the  Northern  States 
— and  I  knew  the  chief  actor  in  it. 

Actor  is  the  word.  It  is  three  months  since  Fechter  [Charles  Albert 
Fechter,  who  created  the  role  of  Armand  Duval  in  "La  dame  aux 
camelias"  in  1852  and  was  known  for  his  "blond  Hamlet"]  sent  to  me 
Booth,  a  celebrated  tragedian  of  New  York,  with  a  strong  letter  of 
recommendation.  Booth  wished  to  spend  a  little  time  in  Paris.  [Fechter 
was  in  London.] 

He  is  an  extremely  handsome  fellow,  vigorous-looking  and  of  dis- 
tinguished manner;  well  enough  educated  but  speaking  French  hardly 
at  all. 

I  courteously  offered  him  the  hospitality  of  my  home  until  he  could 
rent  an  apartment  and  engage  a  carriage  by  the  month,  for  he  wished 
to  maintain  the  style  of  a  gentleman. 

He  lived  in  my  house  for  three  days,  seeking  through  me  to  make 
himself  au  courant  with  the  artistic  and  social  life  here.  Several  times, 
I  remember,  when  we  were  smoking,  he  talked  to  me  about  Julius 
Caesar,  Shakespeare,  and  Brutus — especially  Brutus.  .  .  . 

"What  do  you  in  France  think  of  Brutus?" 

"At  college  we  admire  him  in  the  Greek  version,  on  Plutarch's  testi- 
mony. But,  fundamentally,  what  was  Brutus  save  an  ungrateful  and 
sinister  dreamer — a  sophist  in  his  very  blood?  Did  he  not  pronounce 
judgment  on  himself,  and  on  the  part  he  played,  in  that  final  cry  of 
his:  'Virtue,  thou  art  nothing  but  a  name!'?" 

And  Booth,  disconcerted,  nervously  changed  the  conversation.  I  re- 
member that  now.  When  he  was  no  longer  in  my  home,  I  saw  him 
pretty  often.  He  made  the  round  of  the  theatres,  the  tour  of  the  city, 
progressing  rapidly  in  Parisian  civilization.  To  such  an  extent  that  I 
presented  him  to  a  pretty  girl  of  my  acquaintance  whom  he  had  noticed 
at  the  Porte-Saint-Martin  in  "The  Filibustered  of  the  Sonora." 

But  what  was  my  surprise  one  morning  at  hearing  this  young  person 
— and  she  was  no  timid  soul,  either — relate,  in  utter  dismay,  that  Booth 
was  a  madman.  She  said  that  he  would  get  up  in  the  night  and  walk  in 


380  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

his  sleep  and  jabber  with  spirits;  that  she  was  frightened  and  was  going 
to  escape  to  Nice  without  bidding  him  good-bye.  .  .  . 

Shortly  afterward  Booth — the  sanest  man  in  the  world,  in  appearance 
at  least — came  to  take  farewell  of  me  and  set  out  for  America.  .  .  . 

"It  is  necessary  for  me  to  return,"  he  said. 

It  was  he  who,  during  the  course  of  a  theatrical  performance,  shot 
President  Lincoln  and  got  away  without  being  seized.  .  .  . 

He's  a  fellow  they  will  not  capture  alive;  I'll  guarantee  that.  For  I 
am  aware  that  he  had  his  idee  fixe,  even  when  he  was  in  France.  .  .  . 
He  has  struggled  with  it  in  vain. .  .  .  On  his  return  he  succumbed  to  it. 

This  sounds  plausible,  and  the  Gallic  flavor  is  amusing;  but  it 
cannot  be  true.  From  November  gth,  1864,  when  John  Booth 
came  to  the  National  Hotel  in  Washington,  five  months  before 
the  murder,  he  was  never  absent  long  enough  for  a  voyage  to 
France,  a  residence  of  a  fortnight  or  perhaps  more  in  Paris,  and 
the  return  trip  to  America.  This  was  shown  by  the  register  of  the 
hotel,  a  certified  memorandum  from  which  was  accepted  in  evi- 
dence at  the  Conspiracy  Trial.  It  is  not  possible  that  Booth  could 
have  been  in  France  at  a  time  prior  by  three  months,  or  anything 
like  three  months,  to  April  30th,  1865. 

F.  Lauriston  Bullard,  chief  editorial  writer  of  the  Boston  Her- 
ald, who  made  long  study  of  this  puzzle,  and  with  whom  the 
present  writer  corresponded  regarding  it,  stated  that  his  researches 
"have  yielded  nothing  but  wild  tales."  Neither  he  nor  Philip 
Hale,  who  also  was  interested  in  the  problem,  was  able  to  discover 
any  other  reference  to  this  alleged  visit  of  Booth's.  "Yet  Edmond 
Got,"  he  said,  "was  a  man  of  high  character,  serious  and  dignified." 

It  has  been  asserted  that  the  entry  in  Got's  diary  "confirms  in 
part  documents  in  the  Booth  dossier  in  Washington,"  but  these 
"documents"  appear  to  be  imaginary.  It  has  been  further  asserted 
that  early  in  1865  John  Booth  was  sent  to  France  as  the  agent  of 
Jefferson  Davis  to  appeal  to  Napoleon  III  to  save  the  Confederacy 
in  return  for  the  European  monopoly  of  Southern  cotton.  If 
ever  there  was  "evidence"  of  this  impossible  mission,  it  eluded 
the  agents  of  the  War  Department.  There  is  no  proof  that  John 
Booth  was  at  any  time  on  the  Continent.88 

88  The  reference  in  a  letter  of  Edwin's  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stoddard  (Jan.  1863), 
quoted  in  Skinner's  "The  Last  Tragedian"   (pp.  69-70),  is  not  conclusive. 


FALSE  COLORS  AND  SHAPES  381 

If  it  be  suggested  that  Got's  Booth  was  an  impostor,  some  one 
may  well  ask,  "Why,  then,  did  he  talk  of  Julius  Caesar  and  Brutus 
—'especially  Brutus'?"  Was  it  to  persuade  the  French  actor  that 
his  visitor  belonged  to  the  family  famous  for  acting  Shakespeare— 
the  family  in  which  Brutus  was  so  much  more  than  a  role? 


Afterword 


IN  an  editorial  article  on  Monday,  April  17th,  1865,  Henry  J. 
Raymond  of  the  New  York  Times  said  of  Lincoln's  murder: 

It  is  as  when  there  "was  a  great  cry  in  Egypt,  for  there  was  not 
a  house  where  there  was  not  one  dead." 

We  follow  in  the  contemporary  press  the  fortnight's  progress  of 
the  funeral  train  across  the  country  through  lines  of  mourners; 
we  read  "O  Captain!  My  Captain!"  and  sample  the  printed  texts 
of  rhetorical  eulogies,  and  search  the  recollections  of  those  who  saw 
those  days— we  may  even  have  talked  with  men  and  women  who 
shared  that  grief  and  joined  in  the  dirges,  or  who  viewed  the 
ravaged  face  of  the  dead.  From  all  this  we  might  conclude  that 
Raymond  wrote  no  more  than  literal  truth. 

He  referred,  however,  to  the  North  alone,  and  he  must  be  un- 
derstood as  meaning  the  loyal  North.  For  even  in  the  North  there 
was  considerable  open  rejoicing,  of  which  we  may  learn  from  many 
sources.  Bystanders  maintained  that  a  "street  operator"  in  the 
widely  disloyal  city  of  New  York  was  overheard  to  say,  "This 
thing  ought  to  have  happened  four  years  ago."  "Traitor!  Hang 
him!"  was  the  cry,  and  forthwith  angry  citizens  made  ready  to 
suspend  him  from  a  lamppost  in  front  of  the  Bank  of  North 
America;  but  he  managed  to  escape.  A  German,  Genter  by  name, 
employed  in  a  tannery  at  Duquesne,  Pennsylvania,  expressed 
"great  delight."  Repeatedly  thrown  into  a  tan  vat,  he  was  finally 
rescued  and  discharged.  Among  the  manuscripts  of  the  McLellan 
Collection  is  a  letter  from  Rachel  Miller  of  Conneaut,  Ohio,  to 
her  husband  (seemingly  in  the  army),  telling  of  a  woman  neigh- 

382 


AFTERWORD  383 

bor  who,  when  she  heard  the  news,  "went  out  in  the  street  and 
jumped  up  and  down  and  said  she  was  glad  of  it."  At  Newport, 
Midshipman  Frederic  G.  Hyde,  making  entry  in  his  diary  for 
April  15th,  declared,  "I  never  felt  the  loss  of  any  friend  more  than 
the  loss  of  President  Lincoln!"— but  also  noted  that  "A  man  in  Fall 
River  was  mobbed  for  saying,  'This  is  the  best  news  I  have  heard 
in  four  years.'  "  These  were  but  typical  outbursts  of  Copperhead 
feeling.  A  Copperhead  in  the  vicinity  of  Waterbury,  Connecticut, 
was  said  to  have  displayed  a  flag  bearing  the  words  the  devil  is 
dead. 

Washington's  National  Republican  of  April  26th  published  a 
San  Francisco  dispatch  in  which  it  was  reported  that  at  Green 
Valley  in  California  a  meeting  was  held  for  the  purpose  of  exulting 
over  Lincoln's  death.  When  troops  were  sent  to  break  up  the 
meeting,  ringleaders  barricaded  the  house,  and  not  until  fired 
upon  did  they  surrender.  At  Marietta,  Indiana,  an  anvil  was 
loaded  and  fired  and,  amid  singing  and  dancing,  an  effigy  of  Lin- 
coln was  carried  in  procession  about  the  village  streets  and  then 
burned. 

Northern  radicals,  if  not  exactly  jubilant,  tended  to  be  cheer- 
fully resigned  and  acquiescent.  For  instance,  Representative 
George  W.  Julian  of  Indiana,  in  his  "Political  Recollections," 
says  that  when  first  he  heard  of  the  murder  and  "that  rebel  assas- 
sins were  about  to  take  the  town,"  he  "grew  suddenly  cold,  heart- 
sick and  almost  helpless"— but  he  "soon  rallied." 

I  spent  most  of  the  afternoon  [of  the  15th]  in  a  political  caucus,  held 
for  the  purpose  of  considering  the  necessity  for  a  new  Cabinet  and  a 
line  of  policy  less  conciliatory  than  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln;  and  while 
everybody  was  shocked  at  his  murder,  the  feeling  was  nearly  universal 
that  the  accession  of  Johnson  to  the  presidency  would  prove  a  godsend 
to  the  country. 

In  their  Easter  sermons,  many  of  the  clergy  deplored  Lincoln's 
"natural  gentleness,"  and  appeared  inclined  to  view  his  withdrawal 
as  a  species  of  divine  interposition. 

In  the  South  a  few  voiced  honest  regret.  Gen.  R.  S.  Ewell  in  a 
letter  set  down  his  "unqualified  abhorrence  and  indignation"; 
Gen.  J.  E.  Johnston  and  Gen.  Roger  A.  Pryor  spoke  in  the  same 
vein;  there  were  others  whose  utterance  was  clear  and  decided, 


384  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Nevertheless,  for  the  most  part  the  frank  words  of  John  S.  Wise  in 
"The  End  of  an  Era"  may  be  regarded  as  trustworthy: 

.  .  .  Perhaps  I  ought  to  chronicle  that  the  announcement  was  received 
with  sentiments  of  sorrow.  If  I  did,  I  should  be  lying  for  sentiment's 
sake.  Among  the  higher  officers  and  the  most  intelligent  and  conserva- 
tive men,  the  assassination  caused  a  shudder  of  horror  at  the  heinous- 
ness  of  the  act,  and  at  the  thought  of  its  possible  consequences;  but 
among  the  thoughtless,  the  desperate,  and  the  ignorant,  it  was  hailed 
as  a  sort  of  retributive  justice.  In  maturer  years  I  have  been  ashamed  of 
what  I  felt  and  said  when  I  heard  of  that  awful  calamity.  .  .  .  We  were 
desperate  and  vindictive,  and  whosoever  denies  it  forgets  or  is  false. 

Jefferson  Davis,  while  fleeing  southward  from  Richmond,  re- 
ceived at  Charlotte,  North  Carolina,  a  telegram  from  Gen.  John  C. 
Breckinridge,  announcing  the  murder.  During  the  Conspiracy 
Trial,  Lewis  F.  Bates  testified  that  Davis,  at  the  end  of  a  speech, 
read  this  telegram  aloud  and  commented,  "If  it  were  to  be  done, 
it  were  better  it  were  well  done."  This  testimony— which  suggests 
that  Bates  was  familiar  with  Macbeth's 

If  it  were  done  when  't  is  done,  then  't  were  well 
It  were  done  quickly — 

was  flatly  contradicted  by  Davis  in  "The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Con- 
federate Government,"  and  the  denial  was  confirmed  by  Stephen 
R.  Mallory,  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  Davis'  cabinet,  through  an 
extract  from  Mallory's  papers  as  given  in  McClure's  Magazine 
for  January  1901. 

Davis  in  his  book  observes  that  although  Lincoln's  death,  "in 
view  of  its  political  consequences,"  was  "a  great  misfortune  to  the 
South,"  yet  "we  could  not  be  expected  to  mourn"  for  so  relentless 
an  enemy.  It  may  be  conceded  that  L.  F.  Bates  was  a  false  wit- 
ness; but  Davis'  own  phraseology  is  grudging  and  ungracious— 
rather  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the  man  who,  according  to 
J.  B.  Jones  (in  "A  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary")  had  denounced 
Lincoln  as  His  Majesty  Abraham  the  First,  and  of  whom  Sam 
Houston  is  reported  to  have  said:  "I  know  Jeff  Davis  well.  He  is  as 
ambitious  as  Lucifer  and  as  cold  as  a  lizard." 

At  a  Confederate  meeting  in  the  court  house  square  of  Shreve- 
port,  Louisiana,  on  April  29th,  1865,  a  Colonel  Flournoy  of  Ar- 
kansas made  an  address  that  the  Shreveport  Sentinel  was  con- 


AFTERWORD  385 

strained  to  think  "in  some  respects  rather  uncharitable  and  ill- 
judged."  The  Colonel  compared  John  Booth  to  Marcus  Brutus, 
and  predicted  for  him  a  similar  abiding  fame. 

Manuscript  copies  of  flatulent  stanzas  entitled  "Our  Brutus" 
and  usually  attributed  to  Judge  A.  W.  Terrell  of  Texas  were 
passed  about  in  the  South.  In  this  effusion,  Booth  was  glorified  as 

He  who  dared  break  the  rod 
Of  the  blackamoor's  god, 
All  the  hosts  of  the  despot  defying.  .  .  . 

A  portion  of  it,  set  to  music  as  a  vocal  solo  by  E.  B.  Armand,  was 
published  in  New  Orleans  in  1868.  Another  version  appeared  in 
the  Confederate  Veteran  as  late  as  April  1913. 

In  the  'sixties  an  attempt  was  made  at  Troy,  Alabama,  to  put 
up  a  monument  in  honor  of  Booth  in  Court  House  Square.  Per- 
mission was  refused,  the  owner  placed  the  monument  on  his  own 
land,  and  there  it  was  reported  to  have  stood  until  1921,  when  it 
was  removed  by  order  of  the  town  council. 

Why  did  Booth  shoot  Lincoln?  The  question  long  has  busied 
ingenious  minds.  That  there  must  have  been  some  individual  or 
group  "higher  up"— this  notion  is  a  hardy  perennial  displaying 
many  varieties. 

The  press  made  known  that  G.  G.  McGeer  of  Vancouver  assured 
a  Canadian  parliamentary  committee  on  banking  that  interna- 
tional bankers,  desiring  establishment  of  the  gold  standard,  hired 
Booth  to  put  Lincoln  out  of  the  way.  A  correspondent  of  the 
present  writer's  is  confident  that  the  "Whiskey  Ring"  did  the  hir- 
ing, and  that  Thaddeus  Stevens  was  mixed  up  in  the  business. 

Far  from  new  is  the  charge  that  Andrew  Johnson  was  the  power 
behind  the  Deringer— it  dates  from  an  open  letter  "To  the  People 
of  the  United  States,"  printed  in  the  Montreal  Gazette  of  May 
23rd,  1865,  over  the  signature  of  Beverley  Tucker,  for  whose  ar- 
rest President  Johnson  on  May  2nd  had  offered  $25,000.  Johnson 
had  proclaimed  that  Lincoln's  "atrocious  murder"  was  incited, 
concerted,  and  procured  by  and  between  Jefferson  Davis,  Jacob 
Thompson,  Clement  C.  Clay,  Beverley  Tucker,  George  N.  Sanders, 
William  C.  Cleary,  and  "other  rebels  and  traitors;"  and  he  had 


386  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

offered  rewards  for  the  arrest  of  those  named— graded  from  $100,- 
000  for  Davis  to  $10,000  for  Cleary.  The  fiery  Tucker  replied  in 
no  bland  terms. 

He  pointed  to  "the  fact  that  Andrew  Johnson  is  the  only  solitary 
individual,  of  the  thirty-five  millions  of  souls  comprised  in  that 
land,  who  could  possibly  realize  any  interest  or  benefit"  from  the 
murder;  he  referred  to  what  he  said  was  Booth's  call  upon  John- 
son; alleged  that  Booth  "unquestionably  could  have  been"  taken 
alive.  "Dead  men,"  he  said,  "tell  no  tales,  and  the  wantonly 
hushed  voice  of  this  unhappy  man,  leaves  behind  his  bloody 
tragedy  a  fearful  mystery." 

Here  is  the  stuff  of  which  myth  is  formed.  The  card  that  Booth 
left  at  the  Kirkwood  (Tucker  badly  misquotes  it)  was  not  in- 
tended for  Johnson.  Robert  R.  Jones,  clerk  at  the  hotel,  testified 
on  May  13th,  1865: 

I  gave  a  card  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth  to  Col.  Browning,  Mr.  Johnson's 
secretary;  it  was  put  in  the  box.  I  gave  him  that  card  and  it  was  left 
for  Col.  Browning. 

It  was  not  unquestionable  that  Booth  might  have  been  captured 
alive.  Booth's  voice  was  by  no  means  hushed.  His  letter  "To 
Whom  It  May  Concern"  and  his  "diary"  leave  small  room  for  mys- 
tery. 

Tucker  was  a  resentful  and  angry  man,  striking  back  defen- 
sively. So  was  George  N.  Sanders,  who  in  the  Gazette  of  May  24th 
addressed  a  letter  to  "Titus  Oates  Holt,"  care  of  E.  M.  Stanton, 
Secretary  of  War  "and  co-conspirator."  This  cannot  be  pleaded  for 
those  who  with  well-considered  animus  developed  by  oblique 
hints  what  Prof.  Allan  Nevins  rightly  has  called  "the  bizarre 
hypothesis"  that  Stanton  incited  and  abetted  the  murder.  Of  Stan- 
ton's peculiarities  there  is  sufficient  evidence  for  those  who  care  to 
harp  on  them;  of  an  earlier  and  quite  different  Stanton— a  Stan- 
ton characterized  by  Donn  Piatt  as  "young,  ardent,  and  of  a  most 
joyous  nature,"  with  a  "hearty  and  contagious"  laugh— there  is 
evidence,  too,  for  the  fairminded;  of  a  blood-guilty  Stanton  there 
is  no  real  evidence  whatever.  As  for  Stanton's  fellowship  with 
extreme  radicals,  this,  as  Dewitt  has  said,  "receives  support  from 
no  authentic  testimony  coming  from  himself  at  first  hand." 


AFTERWORD  387 

Soon  after  the  murder,  James  M.  Mason  (the  man  who  had 
drafted  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  of  1850),  lingering  abroad,  in- 
formed the  British  public  that  John  Booth,  far  from  sympathizing 
with  the  South,  was  actually  a  Northern  radical  and  killed  Lin- 
coln in  order  that  radical  schemes  might  have  free  play.  Stanton, 
Mason  charged,  had  sent  out  false  reports  regarding  Booth  and 
Booth's  deed.  Since  the  day  of  Sanders  and  of  Mason,  elaborate 
attack  has  been  made  upon  Stanton  as  the  effective  instrument  of 
an  ill-defined  coterie  of  Northern  politicians.  Though  "at  every 
word  a  reputation  dies,"  the  indictment  admittedly  is  without 
support  in  any  real  evidence. 

Strangely  enough,  Catholics  or  ex-Catholics  have  been  foremost 
in  ascribing  Lincoln's  murder  to  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy. 
Papers  in  the  Department  of  State  reveal  that  Henri  de  Ste.  Marie, 
the  member  of  the  Pontifical  Zouaves  who  informed  against  Sur- 
ratt,  stated  at  Rome,  July  10th,  1866: 

I  believe  he  [Surratt]  is  protected  by  the  clergy,  and  that  the  murder 
is  the  result  of  a  deep-laid  plot,  not  only  against  the  life  of  President 
Lincoln,  but  against  the  existence  of  the  republic,  as  we  are  aware  that 
priesthood  and  royalty  are  and  always  have  been  opposed  to  liberty. 

The  writings  of  Chiniquy  and  Burke  McCarty's  "The  Suppressed 
Truth  about  the  Assassination  of  Lincoln"  have  expanded  on  this 
theme  to  no  purpose,  and  can  be  regarded  as  nothing  more  than 
literary  oddities.  It  is  not  true  that  all,  or  nearly  all,  of  the  ten 
persons  brought  to  trial  were  Roman  Catholics;  only  four  were 
of  the  Catholic  faith:  Mrs.  Surratt,  John  H.  Surratt,  Michael 
O'Laughlin,  and  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd.  Booth  was  confirmed  in 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  and  at  the  last  was  buried  accord- 
ing to  its  rites. 

As  long  ago  as  September  21st,  1872,  Eugene  Lawrence  said  in 
Harper's  Weekly: 

Mr.  Johnson  and  the  majority  of  the  Northern  people,  in  the  first 
rage  of  grief,  fixed  upon  Davis,  Saunders  [Sanders],  Clay,  and  Tucker, 
as  the  real  assassins,  and  a  large  reward  was  offered  for  their  arrest.  Nor 
was  it  unlikely  that  persons  who  were  known  to  have  committed  deeds 
almost  equally  atrocious  would  shrink  from  the  last  step  in  crime.  Yet 
the  proof  failed.  The  plot  has  never  yet  been  traced  beyond  its  active 
agents. 


388  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

On  January  24th,  1876,  the  New  York  Tribune  published  a  let- 
ter from  Chief  Justice  George  Shea  of  the  Marine  Court,  in  which 
he  said  that  at  Washington  in  May  1866  Thaddeus  Stevens  had 
pronounced  the  "evidence"  on  the  basis  of  which  the  rewards 
were  offered  to  be  "insufficient  in  itself,  and  incredible."  Shea 
wrote: 

I  am  not  likely  ever  to  forget  the  earnest  manner  in  which  Mr. 
Stevens  then  said  to  me:  "Those  men  are  no  friends  of  mine.  They  are 
public  enemies;  and  I  would  treat  the  South  as  a  conquered  country 
and  settle  it  politically  upon  the  policy  best  suited  for  ourselves.  But 
I  know  these  men,  sir.  They  are  gentlemen,  and  incapable  of  being 
assassins." 

The  Hon.  A.  J.  Rogers,  member  of  the  Select  Committee  on  the 
Assassination,  had  asserted  in  1866  that  there  was  no  evidence, 
either  verbal  or  written,  "worthy  of  the  slightest  credit,"  to  asso- 
ciate any  of  those  "charged  therewith,  now  at  liberty,  with  that 
assassination,  directly  or  indirectly."  At  the  Conspiracy  Trial  of 
1865  not  only  was  nothing  of  evidential  value  offered  to  prove  a 
"general  conspiracy,"  but  in  fact  the  prosecution  laid  itself  open 
to  charges  of  suborning  perjury.  The  story  that  Booth  was  selected 
by  lot  at  a  conclave  in  Memphis  is  hardly  more  flimsy  than  the 
other  story  that  he  was  the  instrument  of  Southern  agents  in 
Canada.  Neither  has  any  decent  evidence  to  support  it.  The 
Montreal  Telegraph  expressly  affirmed  that  Booth  "was  not  cor- 
dially received  by  Southern  men  here,  it  being  reported  that  he 
was  a  Federal  spy,  and  in  this  light  he  was  generally,  although 
perhaps  untruly  regarded."  Booth  described  himself,  even  in  the 
abduction  plot,  as  "A  Confederate  doing  duty  upon  his  own  re- 
sponsibility"; and  in  the  murder  as  "God's  instrument,"  hoping 
for  no  gain. 

Although  not  believing  that  the  cabinet  at  Richmond  had  ever 
argued  the  matter,  or  that  any  other  member  of  that  cabinet  had 
sanctioned  violence,  William  H.  Seward  (so  Orville  Browning 
recorded)  thought  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  Confederate  Secretary  of 
State,  had  encouraged  and  subsidized  Booth.  It  seems  to  be  true 
that  Benjamin,  both  as  Secretary  of  State  and  previously  as  Sec- 
retary of  War,  had  a  way  of  detailing  Confederate  officers  for 


AFTERWORD  389 

exceptional  service  under  his  direct  orders.  Booth  was  not,  how- 
ever, a  Confederate  officer,  and  nothing  has  at  any  time  been  pro- 
duced from  Benjamin's  archives  or  elsewhere  to  suggest  that  the 
two  men  had  so  much  as  conferred  or  that  Benjamin  had  sup- 
plied funds  for  any  undertaking. 

In  Chapter  Twelve  of  the  present  volume  will  be  found  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  foolish  yarn— extensively  accepted  by  Southerners, 
including  that  professed  historian  Lyon  G.  Tyler— that  Booth's 
deed  was  in  vengeance  for  the  hanging  of  John  Y.  Beall.  A  tenuous 
assumption  is  that  Booth,  knowing  his  voice  was  gone  and  his  act- 
ing career  was  over,  killed  Lincoln  merely  to  win  fame,  inasmuch 
as  fame  upon  the  stage  was  unattainable.  Booth,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  won  fame  upon  the  stage.  His  acting  career  was  by  no  means 
over.  After  getting  rid  of  a  cold  that  had  affected  him  in  New 
Orleans,  he  completed  in  May  1864  five  weeks  of  "most  successful 
performances"  in  Boston;  in  November  took  part,  with  approval, 
in  the  gala  performance  of  "Julius  Caesar"  in  New  York;  and 
early  in  1865  appeared  twice  in  Washington.  He  continued  to  be 
regarded  by  managers  as  a  "star"  attraction;  and,  as  we  know 
from  statements  in  the  War  Department's  archives,  his  brother 
Junius  not  only  had  urged  him  to  "follow  his  profession"  but  ex- 
pected him  to  be  in  New  York  to  play  in  another  benefit  for  the 
Shakespeare  Fund  on  April  22nd. 

There  is  no  need  to  imagine  vain  things  or  to  assemble  a 
melange  of  scandalous  inferences  against  any  particular  individual 
or  small  group,  whether  of  the  North  or  of  the  South.  The  whole 
affair  cuts  deeper  than  that. 

The  Southern  cotton  planters  had  bestowed  the  term  "fanatic" 
on  all  exponents  of  human  liberty;  but  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  a  more  fanatical  devotion  ever  has  been  seen— unless,  per- 
haps, among  Mohammedan  tribesmen— than  was  that  of  the  South 
to  the  idea  of  human  bondage  as  the  divine  cornerstone  of  so- 
ciety. Toward  that  idea  the  most  specious  logic,  the  most  disin- 
genuous oratory,  the  most  incendiary  journalism  were  vigorously 
directed;  and  even  the  Church  was  drawn  to  its  support.  The 
hatred  of  Lincoln  that  existed  both  in  the  South  and  among  the 
Copperheads  of  the  North  was  in  itself  a  testimony  to  his  identity 


390  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

with  the  cause  of  freedom.  Nothing  in  the  character  of  Lincoln  as 
a  person  could  have  moved  Robert  Toombs  of  Georgia  to  exclaim 
(as  he  did  in  the  Senate  on  January  7th,  1861):  "He  is,  therefore, 
an  enemy  of  the  human  race,  and  deserves  the  execration  of  all 
mankind!"  It  was  the  same  enduring  hatred  that,  when  the  Vir- 
ginia House  of  Delegates  passed  a  resolution  in  1928  to  honor  Lin- 
coln's birthday,  moved  Lyon  G.  Tyler  to  write  a  long  and  bitter 
letter  to  the  Richmond  Times-Dispatch,  protesting  against  any 
respect  for  "Lincoln  the  Barbarian." 

The  secessionist  mind,  Henry  Adams  wrote,  was  "haunted  by 
suspicion,  by  idees  fixes,  by  violent  morbid  excitement."  John 
Booth,  from  his  early  years  in  and  near  Baltimore,  had  been 
caught  up  into  all  this,  and  its  result  was  a  kind  of  progressive 
monomania  in  him.  Mrs.  Anne  Gilbert,  who  had  acted  with  him, 
thought  his  frame  of  mind  comparable  to  that  of  a  young  nihilist 
in  autocratic  Russia.  Of  the  real  Lincoln  he  knew  practically  noth- 
ing; Lincoln  was  to  him  the  heartless  despot  of  malicious  carica- 
ture. Henry  Winter  Davis,  Booth's  Know-Nothing  leader,  finally 
turned  Republican,  but  a  radical  one,  so  hating  Lincoln  that,  if 
Lincoln  had  lived,  Davis  would,  it  is  said,  have  attempted  his  im- 
peachment. Booth's  professional  journeyings  had  taken  him 
through  both  the  South  and  the  North,  and  everywhere  he  came 
upon  hatred  of  Lincoln  from  one  motive  or  another. 

It  was  rife  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  John  Booth  often 
sojourned  in  each  of  them;  it  was  rife  in  his  old  home  town  of 
Baltimore,  where  the  abduction  plot  was  launched,  and  in  Wash- 
ington, where  that  plot  was  encouraged.  It  was  amazingly  rife  in 
disloyal  journals  within  the  Federal  lines.  We  are  not  wholly  sur- 
prised that  the  Richmond  Dispatch  referred  to  Lincoln  as  "the 
Chimpanzee"  and  "the  Ape";  that  it  called  him  "an  ignorant  and 
vulgar  backwoods  pettifogger"  and  "a  vulgar  tyrant"  with  "no 
more  idea  of  statesmanship  than  as  a  means  of  making  money," 
who  "still  cries  for  blood";  that  it  said  of  him:  "It  would  be  impos- 
sible to  find  another  such  ass  in  the  United  States."  But  within  the 
Federal  lines  we  meet  pronouncements  like  these: 

From  the  New  York  Copperhead  (May  30th,  1863)— 

The  people  hired  Abe  Lincoln  to  maintain  the  Constitution  and 
Laws  of  the  United  States.  As  he  has  wholly  neglected  to  perform  his 


AFTERWORD  391 

duty,  according  to  agreement,  we  submit  that  he  is  morally  bound  to 
hand  over  his  salary  to  Hon.  C.  L.  Vallandigham  and  others  who  have 
labored  and  done  their  best  to  perform  his  duty  for  him — i.e.,  to  pre- 
serve the  Constitution  and  the  Laws. 

From  the  Illinois  State  Register  (August  4th,  1864),  published 
in  Lincoln's  town  of  Springfield- 
To-day  is  "Massa  Linkum's"  day  of  fasting,  humiliation  and  prayer. 
As  the  Register  thinks  the  nation  has  ample  reason  for  fasting,  because 
Lincoln  has  made  food  so  high;  for  humiliation  at  the  disgrace  his 
miserable,  imbecile  policies  have  brought  upon  us;  and  for  prayer  that 
God,  in  his  goodness,  will  spare  us  a  second  term  of  such  a  president, 
the  day  will  be  observed  by  the  employes  of  this  establishment,  and  no 
paper  may  be  expected  to-morrow. 

But  there  was  worse,  as  for  example: 
This  from  The  South  of  Baltimore  (June  7th,  1861)— 

Two  posts  standant; 
One  beam  crossant; 
One  rope  pendent; 
Abram  on  the  end  on  't, 
Glorious!  splendent. 

Or  this  from  the  New  York  Copperhead  (July  nth,  1863)— 

We  trust  that  long-legged  Kentuckian  at  Washington  will  duly  heed 
these  pregnant  suggestions.  Behave  yourself  in  future,  boss,  or  we  shall 
be  obliged  to  make  an  island  of  your  head  and  stick  it  on  the  end  of  a 
pole. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  Lincoln's  cocoa-nut  will  be  well  posted. 

Or  this  from  the  ineffable  Mark  M.  Pomeroy's  La  Crosse  (Wiscon- 
sin) Democrat   (August  29th,  1864)— 

The  man  who  votes  for  Lincoln  now  is  a  traitor.  Lincoln  is  a  traitor 
and  murderer.  He  who  pretending  to  war  for,  wars  against  the  consti- 
tution of  our  country  is  a  traitor,  and  Lincoln  is  one  of  those  men.  He 
who  calls  and  allures  men  to  certain  butchery,  is  a  murderer,  and  Lin- 
coln has  done  all  this.  Had  any  former  Democratic  President  warred 
upon  the  Constitution  or  trifled  with  the  destinies  of  the  nation  as 
Lincoln  has  he  would  have  been  hurled  to  perdition  long  since.  And  if 
he  is  elected  to  misgovern  for  another  four  years,  we  trust  some  bold 
hand  will  pierce  his  heart  with  dagger  point  for  the  public  good. 


392  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

The  Old  Guard,  a  New  York  magazine,  published  in  May  1865 
(copies  were  out  in  April)  a  section  with  the  running-head 
"Timely  Readings  from  the  Poets."  This  contained  such  excerpts 
from  the  English  poets  as: 

Fear  no  stain; 
A  tyrant's  blood  doth  wash  the  hand  that  spills  it. 

(Cartwright's  "Siege") 

Tyranny 
Is  the  worst  of  treasons. 

(Byron's  "Two  Foscari") 

Tyrants  seldom  die 
Of  a  dry  death;  it  waiteth  at  their  gate, 
Drest  in  the  color  of  their  robes  of  state, 

(Alleyn's  "Henry  VII") 

"The  independent  assassin  .  .  .  ,"  wrote  Dr.  William  Brown- 
ing in  his  "American  Assassins,"  "often  represents  the  crest  of  a 
morbid  wave  including  many  others  in  the  community.  It  is  clear 
that,  excluding  conspiracies,  there  must  be  many  near-assassins  for 
each  one  that  makes  the  attempt.  .  .  .  We  can  be  sure  the  animus 
in  greater  or  less  degree  is  widespread."  Lamon  in  his  "Recollec- 
tions" says  that  during  the  "most  anxious  and  trying  period" 
letter-writers  were  "so  outrageous  and  vindictive  that  if  Booth  had 
wrapped  his  bullet  in  a  shred  of  their  correspondence  he  might 
have  lodged  a  vindication  of  his  crime  in  the  brain  of  his  victim." 

Through  the  fanatical  John  Booth  the  diffused  hatred  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  struck.  Mark  Pomeroy  and  his  species  had  their 
wish.  After  that  demoralizing  winter  of  1864-1865  and  the  col- 
lapse of  the  abduction  plot,  Booth  determined  upon  murder— 
which  he  called  "sacrifice."  It  was  to  him  the  way  of  duty;  it  might 
also  be  the  path  of  glory;  but  "something  decisive  k  great  must 
be  done."  Slavery  he  termed  "one  of  the  greatest  blessings  .  .  . 
that  God  ever  bestowed  upon  a  favored  nation."  ".  .  .  That 
cause,"  wrote  Grant,  "was,  I  believe,  one  of  the  worst  for  which  a 
people  ever  fought."  .  .  .  And  the  blood  of  Lincoln  was  upon 
that  cause. 


PARDON 

Pains  the  sharp  sentence  the  breast  in  whose  wrath  it  was  uttered, 

Now   thou  art   cold; 
Vengeance  the  headlong,  and  justice  with  purpose  close  muttered, 

Loosen  their  hold. 

Death  brings  atonement;  he  did  that  whereof  ye  accuse  him, — 

Murder  accurst; 
But,  from  the  crisis  of  crime  in  which  Satan  did  lose  him, 

Suffered  the  worst. 

Harshly  the  red  dawn  arose  on  a  deed  of  his  doing, 

Never  to  mend; 
But  harsher  days  he  wore  out  in  the  bitter  pursuing 

And  the  wild  end. 

To  lift  the  pale  flag  of  truce,  wrap  those  mysteries  round  him, 

In  whose  avail 
Madness  that  moved,  and  the  swift  retribution  that  found  him, 

Falter  and  fail. 

So  the  soft  purples  that  quiet  the  heavens  with  mourning, 

Willing  to  fall, 
Lend  him  one  fold,  his  illustrious  victim  adorning 

With  wider  pall. 

Back  to  the  cross,  where  the  Saviour,  uplifted  in  dying, 

Bade  all  souls  live, 
Turns  the  reft  bosom  of  Nature,  his  mother,  low  sighing, 
"Greatest,  forgive!" 

Julia  Ward  Howe 


393 


Acknowledgments 


Without  much  courteous  and  intelligent  aid,  this  volume  could 
not  have  been  written.  The  author  here  wishes  to  acknowledge 
an  especial  indebtedness  to  these  persons: 

Prof.  Robert  H.  Ball,  formerly  Curator  of  the  Hutton  and  Seymour 
Collections,  Princeton  University 

Maj.  Ernest  W.  Brown,  Major  and  Superintendent,  Metropolitan 
Police  Department,  Government  of  the  District  of  Columbia 

Mr.  F.  Lauriston  Bullard,  Boston 

Capt.  John  T.  Clemens,  Lincoln  Museum,  Washington 

Mr.  Edward  P.  Crummer,  whose  familiar  and  accurate  knowledge  of 
Baltimore,  its  history,  and  its  people  was  of  great  service.  Through 
him  the  author  obtained  the  assistance  of  the  late  Henry  W.  Mears. 

Miss  Esther  C.  Cushman,  Curator  of  the  McLellan  Collection,  John 
Hay  Library,  Brown  University 

Mr.  Charles  F.  Dahlen 

Mr.  Roy  Day,  Librarian,  The  Players,  New  York 

Mr.  L.  H.  Dielman,  Librarian,  Peabody  Institute  of  the  City  of  Balti- 
more 

Mr.  Ralph  Dudley 

Mrs.  H.  Clay  Ford  (Blanche  Chapman) 

Mr.  John  T.  Ford  III,  whose  interest  was  shown  in  many  ways  and 
particularly  through  the  loan  of  the  John  T.  Ford  Papers,  an  im- 
portant collection  hitherto  unknown  to  students 

Mr.  Louis  H.  Fox,  Chief  of  the  Newspaper  Division,  New  York  Public 
Library 

Mr.  Harper  L.  Garrett,  National  Park  Service,  Washington 

Miss  Mary  F.  Goodwin,  Richmond 

Mr.  Irving  Greentree,  Richmond 

Mr.  Wilmer  M.  Hall,  Librarian,  State  Library  of  Virginia 

Miss  Susan  B.  Harrison,  House  Regent,  Confederate  Museum,  Rich- 
mond 

394 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  395 

Mrs.  Walter  Hopkins 

Mr.  George  lies 

Mr.  John  Hall  Jacobs,  Librarian,  New  Orleans  Public  Library 

Rev.  Fleming  James,  Berkeley  Divinity  School 

Mr.  David  W.  Jenkins,  Baltimore 

Mr.  J.  L.  Lyons,  Chief  Clerk,  Office  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General, 
Washington 

Miss  Helen  Magonigle 

The  late  Henry  W.  Mears,  Baltimore 

The  late  Edward  B.  Pitts,  formerly  Chief  Clerk,  Office  of  the  Judge 
Advocate  General,  Washington 

Miss  May  Davenport  Seymour,  Curator  of  the  Theatre  and  Music  Col- 
lections, Museum  of  the  City  of  New  York 

Miss  Jean  E.  Spaulding,  Brander  Matthews  Dramatic  Museum,  Colum- 
bia University 

Mr.  A.  V.  Sullivan,  Treasury  Department  Archives,  Washington 

Mrs.  Natalia  Summers,  State  Department  Archives,  Washington 

Mr.  Richard  Webster,  for  his  critical  reading  of  a  portion  of  the  text 
and  the  benefit  of  his  many  helpful  suggestions  throughout  the  work 

Dr.  Isadore  Zadek,  for  his  expert  advice 

Further  acknowledgment  should  also  be  made  to 

The  Board  of  Directors,  The  Players,  New  York 

The  Chicago  Historical  Society 

The  Congressional  Library,  Washington,  for  the  use  of  its  resources 
and  for  the  numerous  courtesies  of  its  staff 

The  Enoch  Pratt  Free  Library,  Baltimore 

The  Fraser  Institute,  Montreal 

The  Harvard  College  Library 

The  Indiana  State  Library,  Indianapolis 

The  Library  of  the  City  of  Boston 

The  Library  of  the  Maryland  Historical  Society,  Baltimore 

The  Library  of  the  Union  League  Club,  Philadelphia 

The  New  York  Historical  Society 

The  New  York  Public  Library;  and  especially  its  American  History 
Division,  Drama  Section,  and  Newspaper  Division,  for  constant  help 
in  the  work  of  research 

The  Edward  V.  Valentine  Collection  of  the  Valentine  Museum,  Rich- 
mond 

The  State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin,  Madison 


Bibliography 


The  manuscript  material  used  by  the  author  is  for  the  most 
part  cited  in  the  footnotes.  For  reference  purposes  a  selected  list 
is  here  given  of  printed  sources  that  were  especially  serviceable. 

Newspapers  and  News-Periodicals 


Albany  Evening  Journal 
Atlas  and  Argus   (Albany) 
Baltimore  American 
Baltimore  Evening  Star 
Baltimore  Republican 
Baltimore  Sun 
Boston  Advertiser 
Boston  Gazette 
Boston  Globe 
Boston  Journal 
Boston  Post 
Daily  Alta  California 
Daily  Dispatch  (Richmond) 
Daily  Evening  Bulletin 

(Philadelphia) 
Daily  Morning  Chronicle 

(Washington) 
Daily  National  Intelligencer 

(Washington) 
Daily  National  Republican 

(Washington) 
Daily  Picayune  (New  Orleans) 
Daily  Richmond  Examiner 
Dramatic  Mirror 
Evening  Bulletin  (Philadelphia) 
Evening  Day-Book  (New  York) 


Evening  Post  (New  York) 

Evening  Star  (Washington) 

Forney's  War  Press  (Philadelphia) 

Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated 
Newspaper 

Harper's  Weekly 

Missouri  Republican 

Montreal  Gazette 

National  Era 

National  Intelligencer,  Tri-weekly 
edition 

New  York  Argus 

New  York  Clipper 

New  York  Commercial  Adver- 
tiser 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 

New  York 


Copperhead 

Daily  News 

Dramatic  Mirror 

Herald 

Leader 

Mirror 

Morning  Telegraph 

Recorder 

Sunday  Telegraph 

Times 

Tribune 


396 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  397 

New  York  Weekly  Times  Sun  (New  York) 

Philadelphia  Inquirer  Sunday  Herald  (Boston) 

Philadelphia  North  American  Sunday  Mercury  (New  York) 

Philadelphia  Press  The  South  (Baltimore) 

Philadelphia  Record  Washington  Critic 

Richmond  Daily  Whig  Washington  Patriot 

Richmond  Enquirer  Washington  Weekly  Chronicle 

Spirit  of  the  Times  (New  York)  World  (New  York) 

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Journals  of  the  72nd,  73rd,  74th  and  75th  Councils  of  the  Protestant 
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Usher,  J.  P.:  President  Lincoln's  Cabinet.  Omaha,  1925.  Pamphlet. 
An  address 

Wallace,  Lew:  An  Autobiography.  New  York,  2  vols.,  1906 

Ward,  William  H.  (ed.):  Abraham  Lincoln:  Tributes  from  His 
Associates.  New  York,  1895.  Originally  printed  in  a  special  Lincoln 
Number  of  The  Independent,  Apr.  4,  1895 

Weddell,  Alexander  W.:  Richmond,  Virginia,  in  Old  Prints,  1737- 
1887.  Richmond,  1932 

Welles,  Gideon:  Diary.  Boston,  1911 

White,  L.  S.  8c  Co.:  Baltimore  Railway  and  Steamboat  Guide.  Balti- 
more, 1859 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  405 

Williams,  Wellington:  The  Traveler's  and  Tourist's  Guide  through 
the  United  States,  Canada,  etc.  Philadelphia,  1859 
Wilson,  Francis:  John  Wilkes  Booth.  Boston,  1929 
Wilson,  William  B.:  A  Few  Acts  and  Actors  in  the  Tragedy  of  the 
Civil  War  in  the  United  States.  Philadelphia,  1892 

History  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.  Philadelphia,  2 
vols.,  1899 
Winter,  William:  Life  and  Art  of  Edwin  Booth.  New  York,  1894 

Vagrant  Memories.  New  York,  1915 
Wise,  John  S.:  The  End  of  an  Era.  Boston,  1899 
Wood's  Baltimore  City  Directory 

Also  Nicolay  and  Hay:  Abraham  Lincoln.  A  History,  and  various  other 
biographies  of  Lincoln 

Magazine  Articles 

Arnold,  Isaac  N.:  The  Baltimore  Plot — Harper's  Maga.,  June  1868 
Badeau,  Adam:  Edwin  Booth  on  and  off  the  Stage — McClure's  Maga., 

August  1893 
Black,  F.  L.:  Six  articles  in  the  Dearborn  Independent,  March  21 -April 

25^  J925 
Brooks,  Noah:  Personal  Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln — Harper's 

Maga.,  July  1865 
Chambrun,  Marquis  de:  Personal  Recollections  of  Mr.  Lincoln — Scrib- 

ner's  Maga.,  January  1893 
Chapman,  Julia  A.,  Letter  of — Century  Maga.,  April  1909 
Croffut,   W.   A.:    Lincoln's  Washington — Atlantic   Monthly,   January 

!93° 
Doherty,  E.  P.,  Narrative  of — Century  Maga.,  January  1890 

Included,  with  the  narrative  of  M.  B.  Ruggles  and  additional  particu- 
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Wilkes  Booth,"  edited  by  Prentiss  Ingraham 
Fesler,  Mayo:  Secret  Political  Societies  in  the  North  during  the  Civil 

War — Indiana  Maga.  of  History,  September  1918 
Ford,  John  T.:  Behind  the  Curtain  of  a  Conspiracy — North  American 

Review,  April  1889 
Garrett,  W.  H.:  True  Story  of  the  Capture  of  John  Wilkes  Booth — 

Confederate  Veteran,  April  1921 
Gilmore,  James  R.:   The  New  York  Tribune  in  the  Draft  Riots — 

McClure's  Maga.,  October  1895 
Gleason,  D.  H.  L.:  Conspiracy  against  Lincoln — Magazine  of  History, 

February  1911 
Grover,  Leonard:  Lincoln's  Interest  in  the  Theatre — Century  Maga., 

April  1909 


406  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  MYTH 

Hathaway,  Carson  C:  What  "the  Mark  of  the  Scalpel"  Tells — Dear- 
born Independent,  February  7,  1925 

Hay,  John:  Life  in  the  White  House  in  the  Time  of  Lincoln — Century 
Maga.,  November  1890 

His  Regiment's  Last  Reunion — World's  Work,  February  1908 

Johnston,  Alva:   "John  Wilkes  Booth"  on  Tour — Saturday  Evening 
Post,  February  19,  1938 

Knox,  J.  S.,  Letter  of — Princeton  Alumni  Weekly,  February  7,  1917 

May,  John  F.:  The  Mark  of  the  Scalpel — Records  of  the  Columbia 
Hist.  Soc,  vol.  xiii,  1910 

McBride,  Robert  W.:  Lincoln's  Body  Guard — Indiana  Hist.  Soc.  Pub- 
lications, vol.  v,  1911 

McKillips,  Budd  L.:  Rail  Official's  Death  Again  Raises  Lincoln  Plot 
Doubts — Labor,  March  22,  1930 

Moffett,  Cleveland:  How  Allan  Pinkerton  Thwarted  the  Plot  to  Assas- 
sinate Lincoln — McClure's  Maga.,  November  1894 

Moss,  M.  Helen  Palmes:  Lincoln  and  Wilkes  Booth  as  Seen  on  the  Day 
of  the  Assassination — Century  Maga.,  April  1909 

Munroe,    Seaton:    Recollections    of    Lincoln's    Assassination — North 
American  Review,  April  1896 

Pegram,  W.  H.:  An  Historical  Identification — Maryland  Hist.  Maga., 
December  1913 

Perry,  Leslie  J.:  Lincoln's  Official  Habit — Lippincott's  Monthly  Maga., 
May  1902 

Porter,  Horace:   Campaigning  with  Grant — Century  Maga.,  October 
1897 

Reid,  Albert  T.:  Boston  Corbett:  The  Man  of  Mystery  of  the  Lincoln 
Drama — Scribner's  Maga.,  July  1929 

Ruggles,  M.  B.,  Narrative  of — Century  Maga.,  January  1890 
Including  also  the  narrative  of  A.  R.  Bainbridge 

Shepherd,  W.  G.:  Shattering  the  Myth  of  John  Wilkes  Booth's  Escape — 
Harper's  Maga.,  November  1924 

Skinner,  Otis:  The  Last  of  John  Wilkes  Booth — American  Maga.,  No- 
vember 1908 

Stimmel,  Smith:  Experiences  as  a  Member  of  President  Lincoln's  Body 
Guard,  1863-65 — North  Dakota  Hist.  Quarterly,  January  1927 

Storey,    Moorfield:    Dickens,   Stanton,   Sumner,   and  Storey — Atlantic 
Monthly,  April  1930 

Taylor,  W.  H.:  A  New  Story  of  the  Assassination  of  Lincoln — Leslie's 
Weekly,  March  26,  1908 

The  Assassination  of  President  Lincoln,    1865 — American   Historical 
Review,  April  1924  (Letter  of  James  Tanner  to  H.  F.  Walch) 

The  Diary  of  a  Public  Man — North  American  Review,  August-Novem- 
ber 1879 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


407 


Tilton,  Clint  C:  First  Plot  against  Lincoln — National  Republic,  Feb- 
ruary 1936 

Tindal,  William:  Booth's  Escape  from  Washington — Records  of  the 
Columbia  Hist.  Soc,  vol.  xviii,  1915 

Townsend,  G.  A.:  How  Wilkes  Booth  Crossed  the  Potomac — Century 
Maga.,  April  1884 

Weik,  Jesse  W.:  A  New  Story  of  Lincoln's  Assassination — Century 
Maga.,  February  1913 


Index compiled 


BY  RICHARD  WEBSTER 


Abduction  plot,  against  Buchanan,  14; 
against  Lincoln  and  new  Cabinet,  56,  57; 
Booth  tells  Chester  about  plot  in  win- 
ter of  64-5,  114-5;  tne  conspirators  in, 
115-8,  120;  fails,  119;  not  backed  by 
Canadian  agents,  122;  nor  by  Richmond 
authorities,  123;  difficulties  of,  124;  au- 
thorities confuse  it  with  murder,  193; 
Booth's  apology  for,  in  his  letter,  240-2; 
St.  Helen  explains  why  murder  was 
substituted,  342;  failure  of,  drives  Booth 
to  murder,  392 

Alexandria,  Va.,  Clemens  says  he  came 
from,  to  kill  Lincoln,  122;  ferry  to, 
Washington  exit  to  be  watched,  193; 
no  pass  required  to  (in  Apr.  '65),  194; 
trains  to  Fairfax  from,  ordered  stopped, 
198 

Allen,  Maj.  E.  J.,  alias  of  Allan  Pink- 
erton,  29,  58 

American  Knights,  Order  of,  opposes 
war,  130;  J.  T.  Ford  says  Spangler  a 
member  of,  140 

American  Museum  (Barnum's)  adver- 
tises visit  by  Lincoln,  23;  visited  by 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  24;  Confederate  plan  to 
burn,   102 

Amusements,  Washington,  9-10,  69-70 

Anderson,  Maj.  Robert,  on  conditions 
at  Fort  Sumter,  55 

Andersonville  prison,  Corbett  sent  to, 
70;  inhumanity  of  Wirz  there,  305 

"Apostate,  The,"  John  Booth  plays 
Pescara  in,  8,  89,  90,  98,  102 

Appomattox,  news  of,  in  Washing- 
ton, 134-5 

Arch  Street  Theatre,  Philadelphia, 
Booth's  appearances  at,  84,  90-1 

Armstrong,  Rev.  J.  G.,  of  Richmond, 
Va.,  myth  he  was  Booth;  his  real  his- 
tory, 326-8 

Army  Medical  Museum,  three  Booth 
vertebras  in,  275;  lodged  in  what  was 
Ford's  Theatre,  298 

Arnold,  I.  N.,  on  Washington  as 
armed  camp,  12  n;  on  Baltimore  plot, 
39,  45;  tries  to  see  Lincoln  Good  Friday 
night,    164-5 

Arnold,  Samuel,  boyhood  friend  of 
Booth,  107;  in  abduction  plot,  115,  117, 
123;  on  the  plot,  118-9,  123»  reproves 
Booth,  119,  138;  returns  to  Baltimore, 
119;  Booth  and  he  quarrel,  139;  his  let- 


ter is  found  in  Booth's  trunk  and  leads 
to  his  arrest,  192-3,  236,  246;  authorities 
at  cross  purposes  in  tracing,  193;  held 
on  board  Saugus,  273;  sentenced  to  hard 
labor  for  life,  sent  to  Fort  Jefferson,  295; 
pardoned  by  Johnson  ('69),  314;  knew 
John  was  buried  at  Green  Mount,  317-8 

Arsenal,  Washington,  D.  C,  Garretts 
imprisoned  there  and  threatened  by 
mob,  283;  history;  Booth's  body  taken 
to  old  penitentiary  building  there  and 
buried,  292-3;  reburial  in  warehouse 
of  Booth  and  four  conspirators,  305-6 

Asburn,  C.  W.,  son  of  L.  I.  Booth, 
wants  to  get  George's  oil  lands,  360 

Assassination,  Baltimore  plot  of  '61, 
26;  Lincoln  alludes  to,  27;  Pinkerton 
uncovers,  34-5;  pros  and  cons  of,  36  et 
seq.;  for  political  purposes,  not  Ameri- 
can, 47,  59;  safeguards  against,  often  un- 
availing, 71;  attempted,  of  Jackson  in 
'35'  74 >  rumors  of,  at  Mar.  '65  inaugura- 
tion, 121-2;  Lamon  fears,  137;  see  Lin- 
coln, murder  of 

Assassination  Committee,  Rogers  of, 
says  no  evidence  of  Confederate  leaders' 
complicity,  388 

Atlanta,  Ga.,  Armstrong  and  Edwin 
Booth  in,  327 

Atzerodt,  G.  A.  ("Port  Tobacco"), 
in  abduction  plot,  118;  from  Lower 
Maryland,  124;  at  Pennsylvania  House, 
136;  meets  Booth  and  Paine  at  Herndon 
House,  166;  Booth  puts  name  at  end  of 
letter,  202;  and  bay  mare  at  Nailor's, 
232-3;  saddle  and  bridle  give  clue  to, 
234;  runs  away  from  killing  Johnson; 
is  caught,  236-7;  Murphy  thinks  he 
would  have  been  convicted  even  by  civil 
court,  238;  Doster  is  counsel  for,  244, 
286;  often  at  Mrs.  Surratt's,  247;  moved 
from  Old  Capitol  to  Montauk;  ironed, 
handcuffed,  hooded,  273;  reward  paid 
for  his  capture,  284;  sentenced  to  death; 
hanged,  295;  removal  of  body  to  arsenal 
warehouse  1,  305-6;  named  by  Sinclair 
in  delirium,  328;  not  taken  by  Dana's 
troops,  as  Dana  said,  341  n 

Augur,  Gen.  C.  C,  commanding 
Washington  military  department,  121, 
178;  at  Petersen  house;  gets  order  to 
turn  out  troops,  187;  orders  cavalry  to 
banks  of  upper  Potomac,  198-9;  and  to 


408 


Piscataway,  199;  Fletcher  gives  him  de- 
scription of  Herold,  clue  to  Atzerodt, 
234;  orders  Ford's  closed,  296;  David 
Dana's  story  about,  341;  ordered  (says 
St.  Helen)  to  withdraw  guard  at  Navy 
Yard  bridge,  342 

Australia,  Edwin  Booth  in,  80;  in  '54 
not  '59,  370 

Autopsy,  on  Lincoln  by  Dr.  Wood- 
ward, 215;  on  Booth  by  Barnes,  274-5 

Avon  Creek,  Md.,  Booth  and  Herold 
in,  252 

Badden,  Joseph,  guides  Booth  to  Bry- 
ant's,  253 

Badeau,  Gen.  Adam,  witnesses  Edwin 
Booth's  marriage,  91;  calls  John  Booth 
"very  captivating,"  93;  at  Edwin's  N.  Y. 
home,  93,  no;  Grant's  secretary,  on 
Mrs.  Lincoln's  treatment  of  Mrs.  Grant, 
159-160 

Baden    Baden,    imaginary    Booth    at, 

325 

Bainbridge,  A.  R.,  one  of  three 
Mosby  soldiers  at  Port  Conway,  254; 
tells  Booth  of  soldiers  near,  256-7;  pur- 
sued by  Conger  and  Baker,  261;  in  the 
St.  Helen  version,  343 

Baker,  Lieut.  L.  B,  (Byron),  cousin 
and  officer  of  Col.  L.  C.  Baker,  sent 
after  Booth,  259-60;  gets  clue  from  Rol- 
lins, 261;  at  capture  of  Jett,  262;  sends 
Jack  Garrett  into  tobacco-house  and 
parleys  with  Booth,  263-4;  seizes  Booth 
and  helps  carry  him  out,  265;  with 
Doherty  sews  Booth's  body  in  blanket, 
267;  identifies  Booth,  268;  at  first  sup- 
poses Conger  shot  Booth,  265,  269,  273; 
sure  Booth  not  suicide,  265,  269;  has 
photograph  of  Booth,  261,  268,  285;  on 
Booth's  eagerness  to  die  fighting,  273; 
met  at  Alexandria  by  Eckert  and  Col. 
L.  C.  Baker,  273;  helps  take  Booth's 
body  from  Montauk,  287-8;  at  the 
arsenal  grounds,  293 

Baker,  Col.  L.  C,  brings  anonymous 
threats  to  Lincoln,  59;  called  by  Stanton 
to  find  Booth,  200-1,  236;  ability  and 
faults  of,  236;  sends  Conger  and  L.  B. 
Baker  after  Booth,  259-60;  knew  "north- 
ern neck"  (Va.),  261;  brings  Stanton 
word  of  Booth's  death,  266;  meets  the 
Ide  at  Alexandria,  273;  with  Holt  and 
Barnes  on  Montauk,  274;  distributes  por- 
traits of  Booth,  Herold,  Surratt,  285; 
offers  $10,000  reward,  285;  and  disposal 
of  Booth's  body,  287-8;  misleads  the 
press,  289-90;  suspected  of  fraud,  292; 
takes  body  to  arsenal,  293-4;  reports  to 
Stanton  and  gives  him  key,  294;  David- 
son's story  of  Baker's  burial  of  Booth  in 
Portsmouth,  Va.,  319 

"Baker's   Mounted   Rangers,"   260 

Baltimore,    Md.,    plot    to    assassinate 


Lincoln  in  (Feb.  '61),  26,  30,  35;  Lin- 
coln secretly  passes  through,  29;  Repub- 
lican Club  of,  30-1;  mobs,  disorder  and 
political  clubs,  40-1;  press  on  Lincoln, 
42-3;  reception  of  Lincoln  party,  43; 
attack  on  6th  Massachusetts,  44-5;  "three 
glorious  days,"  45,  75;  disaffection  in, 
49,  107,  390;  breaks  communication  to 
Washington,  57;  was  Booth  active  there 
in  '61?  75;  Booths  living  there,  79; 
John's  first  theatrical  appearances,  83-4, 
John  stars  as  Richard  III,  88;  often 
there  in  winter  of  '64-5,  107,  114;  much 
blockade-running  from,  107-08;  many 
spies  in,  108;  mails  to  Richmond,  108; 
strong  Confederate  sympathy  in,  109, 
390;  Paine  at  Branson  boarding-house 
in,  115;  abduction  plot  starts  in,  123-4; 
Lincoln  conciliatory  to,  128;  avenues 
from  Washington  to,  193;  orders  to 
guard  them,  194;  search  for  Booth  and 
rumor  of  capture  there,  197-8;  Booth's 
body  brought  to,  309 

Baltimore  Cemetery,  Edwin  Booth's 
plan  to  bury  John  in,  306;  visited  by  the 
curious  when  John's  body  was  brought 
from  Baltimore,  310;  Richard  and  J.  B. 
Booth    (the  elder)  buried  there,  310 

Baltimore  &  Ohio  R.  R.,  entry  to 
Washington  from  North,  4;  rumors  of 
violence  threatened  along  (Feb.  '61), 
20-21;  Lincoln  party  on,  going  to  Wash- 
ington,  29-30;   exit   to  be  watched,   193 

Bankers,  international,  said  to  have 
backed   Booth   to   murder   Lincoln,  385 

Bar,  to  fasten  door  of  box,  205-6 

Barn,  Garrett's:  see  tobacco-house 

Barnes,  Surgeon-General  J.  K.,  at  Lin- 
coln's deathbed,  189,  378;  attending 
Seward,  196;  on  lodgment  of  ball  that 
killed  Lincoln,  214-5;  at  autopsy  on 
Booth,   275,   280 

Barnum,  P.  T.,  advertises  Lincoln  will 
be  at  Museum,  23;  Bennett  suggests 
inauguration  under  auspices  of,  32;  on 
oil  business,  103 

Barnum's  City  Hotel,  Baltimore, 
Booth  at,  107,  117;  abduction  plotters 
meet  at,   117,   123-4 

Barnum's  Museum  (New  York):  see 
American   Museum 

Barras,  C.  M.,  author  of  "The  Black 
Crook,"  builds  Cedar  Cliff,  sells  it  to 
Edwin  Booth   (1872),  370 

Bates,  D.  H.,  Lincoln  reads  Shake- 
speare to,  67;  tries  to  connect  Booth  and 
Paine  with  plot  to  burn  N.  Y.,  123;  on 
actual  harmony  between  Lincoln  and 
Stanton,  129;  on  Stanton's  "outer  crust," 
130;  on  Stanton,  Grant,  and  Ford's  The- 
atre party,  161;  on  Eckert's  invitation 
to  Ford's,  163  n;  on  time  of  Booth's  shot, 
214;  on  distance  of  box  from  stage,  215; 
uncertain  whether  Eckert's  presence  in 


409 


"state  box"  would  have  helped,  220 
Bates,  F.  L.,  writes  "Escape  and  Sui- 
cide of  John  Wilkes  Booth,"  332-3;  in- 
terviewed by  W.  G.  Shepherd,  333-4; 
describes  John  St.  Helen,  335-6;  about 
St.  Helen's  "confession,"  336;  fails  to 
interest  War  Dept.  and  State  Dept., 
337-8;  identifies  David  E.  George  as  St. 
Helen,  338-9;  George  said  to  have  left 
letter  for,  339;  claims  to  have  been  St. 
Helen's  attorney,  339;  exhibits  George's 
embalmed  corpse  and  tries  to  sell  it,  340; 
writes  from  memory,  340;  borrows  from 
David  Dana,  340-1;  gives  his  version  of 
Booth's  (St.  Helen's)  escape,  342-4;  Hood 
County  (Tex.)  people  regarding,  344-6; 
as  to  St.  Helen  in  Leadville,  346  n;  as 
to  George's  alias  in  Hennessey,  347  n; 
adds  "confession"  to  affidavit,  347  n;  fal- 
sifies date  of  George's  death,  347;  asks 
Penniman  to  make  George's  corpse  look 
like  St.  Helen  tintype,  351;  calls  St. 
Helen's  eyes  black,  349;  "fakes"  portrait 
of  Booth  in  "Escape,"  351;  does  not  im- 
press Ryan  or  Penniman,  350;  misrepre- 
sents interview  with  Jefferson,  351-2; 
misrepresents  interview  with  J.  B.  Booth 
III,  354-5;   falsely  quotes  Clara   Morris, 

354 

Beall,  J.  Y.,  attempts  to  free  Confed- 
erate prisoners  (Johnson's  Is.),  123, 
372-3;  falsehood  connecting  Booth  with 
the  hanging  of,  373,  389 

Beall,  Lily,  sister  of  J.  Y.  Beall,  story 
Booth  was  in  love  with,  373 

Beantown,  Md.,  Booth  at  Navy  Yard 
bridge  says  he  lives  near,  231 

Beckwith,  S.  H.,  Grant's  telegrapher, 
132,  161;  travels  with  Grant  on  Apr.  14, 
161,  245;  has  no  mention  of  attempt  to 
kill  Grant,  245 

Belair,  Md.,  J.  B.  Booth  establishes 
home  at,  78;  Richard  Booth  at,  78-9; 
birthplace  of  John  Booth,  76;  troops 
search  Booth  homestead  at,  197-8 

Belle  Plain,  Va.,  Conger's  detail  lands 
there,  261 

"Belle's  Stratagem,  The,"  Booth  makes 
Philadelphia  debut  in,  84 

Benjamin,  J.  P.,  Confederate  Secy,  of 
War,  later  of  State,  describes  Buchanan, 
55;  Surratt  carries  dispatches  for,  149  n; 
has  cipher  same  as  that  in  Booth's  trunk, 
192,  244;  subsidized  Booth,  in  Seward's 
opinion,  388 

Benning's  bridge,  D.  C,  in  route  of 
abduction  plot,   120 

Benton,  Col.  J.  G.,  in  command  ar- 
senal post,  293;  Stanton's  orders  to,  for 
Booth's  burial,  294-5 

Berret,  Mayor  J.  G.,  of  Washington,  on 
companies  drilling  in  '61,  17;  asks  Gar- 
rett of  B.  &  O.  about  Lincoln's  safety, 
20;  makes  inquiries  of  Marshal  Kane,  42 


Bigelow,  John,  in  Paris,  hears  of  plots, 

59 

Bill  of  exchange  payable  to  Booth, 
found  on  body  at  Garrett's,  266;  means 
of  identification,   268 

"Billy  Bowlegs,"  nickname  of  John 
Booth,  81 

Bishop,  C.  B.,  plays  with  John  Booth 
in  "The  Apostate,"  102;  present  when 
John  is  identified  at  Weaver's  by  the 
Booths  and  the  Fords,  310-11 

Black,  F.  L.,  his  researches  in  connec- 
tion with  St.  Helen  and  George,  345  et 
seq. 

Blackmail,  of  Rose  and  Edwin  Booth 
by  pretended  widow  of  John,  363-4 
Black  Snakes,  Baltimore,  41 
Blaine,  J.  G.,  on  Lincoln's  journey  to 
Washington,  48 

Blair,  Montgomery,  Postmaster-Gen- 
eral, hostile  to  Stanton  and  Chase,  128 

Blake,  J.  B.,  on  Edelin's  boast  he 
would  shoot  Lincoln,  17 

Blood-Tubs,   Baltimore,  41,    109 
"Bombastes  Furioso,"  Booth's  parody 
of,  177 

Bombay,  Booth's  alleged  letters  from, 
to  "Kelley,"  368 

Bookstaver,  D.  S.,  on  Baltimore  plot 
to  kill  Lincoln    (Feb.  '61),  36-7 

Boot,  Booth's,  slit  and  given  to  Lieut. 
Lovett,  249;  cavalry  type;  for  left  foot, 
249;  replaced  by  old  shoe  with  upper  re- 
moved, 249,  255;  boot  and  shoe  seen  at 
Harvey  and  Marr's,  308;  and  at  Weav- 
er's, 311-2,  313 

Booth,  Asia:  see  Clarke,  Asia  (Booth) 
Booth,  Blanche:  see  De  Bar,  Blanche 
Booth,  Edwin,  early  career  of,  79-80; 
impressions  of  young  John,  82;  John's 
letter  to,  85;  John's  resemblance  to,  85, 
89,  92,  268,  287;  acting  of  the  two  com- 
pared, 90,  92,  93,  99;  praises  John  as  Pes- 
cara,  90;  marries  Mary  Devlin  (d.  1863), 
91,  370  n;  his  character  and  John's, 
96;  Brutus  in  "Julius  Caesar,"  with 
Junius  and  John,  101;  his  famous  en- 
gagement as  Hamlet,  101;  his  home  in 
New  York,  1 10;  on  plans  for  Shakespeare 
benefit,  110;  asks  John  about  enlisting, 
141;  shot  Lincoln,  rumor  says,  184, 
286-7;  retires  from  stage,  239;  life  threat- 
ened, 239;  writes  to  Asia  Clarke  about 
letter  from  John's  fiancee,  243;  R.  B. 
Garrett's  letter  to,  269;  photograph  of, 
at  Conspiracy  Trial,  286-7;  subpoenaed 
but  not  called  on  to  testify,  287;  says  he 
knows  little  about  John,  287;  asks  Grant 
for  John's  body,  304-5;  asks  Johnson  for 
body  and  for  a  trunk,  306;  opens  Booth's 
Theatre,  N.  Y.,  306;  marries  Mary  Mc- 
Vicker,  who  plays  Juliet  to  his  Romeo, 
306;  never  in  Washington  after  murder 
except    under   subpoena,   306-7;    not   at 


410 


Harvey  and  Marr's,  309;  gets  telegram 
from  Ford,  309;  at  Green  Mount  com- 
mittal, 315;  tells  Mears  to  leave  John's 
grave  unmarked,  321;  in  '73  burns 
John's  theatrical  wardrobe,  322-3;  and 
Armstrong  in  Atlanta,  327;  Mrs.  Christ 
confuses  John  with,  331;  St.  Helen  wants 
picture  sent  to,  336;  writes  Hutton  on 
widow,  blackmail,  and  Tribune,  363-4; 
shot  at  in  Chicago  (not  Cincinnati),  369; 
buys  house  at  Cos  Cob  in  '72  (not  '59), 
370;  in  U.  S.  (not  Australia)  in  '59,  370; 
story  of  his  meeting  John  in  London, 
371;  his  letter  to  the  Stoddards,  380  n 

Booth,  Houston,  of  Galesburg,  111., 
pretended  cousin  of  John,  says  John 
escaped  to  Oklahoma,  319-20 

Booth,  J.  A.  ("Doc"),  ear  and  throat 
specialist,  80;  jailed  in  N.  Y.  after  mur- 
der, 239;  at  Harvey  and  Marr's  to  get 
identification  of  John's  body,  309;  at 
Weaver's  undertaking  rooms,  310-1;  cer- 
tain John  was  buried  at  Green  Mount, 
318 

Booth,  J.  B.  the  elder,  father  of  John, 
77-8;  believes  animal  life  sacred,  79; 
buried  in  Baltimore  Cemetery,  310;  re- 
buried  in  Green  Mount,  314 

Booth,  J.  B.  II  ("June"),  actor  and 
manager,  79;  Edwin's  manager,  80;  in 
"Julius  Caesar"  with  Edwin  and  John, 
101;  to  Asia  Clarke  about  John's  valen- 
tine, 113-4;  about  John's  engagement  to 
Miss  Hale,  126;  arrested  in  Philadelphia, 
239;  John  assigns  oil  lands  to,  240;  at 
Green  Mount  committal,  315;  on  loss  of 
John's  wardrobe,  322;  urges  John  to  re- 
main on  stage,  389;  plans  another  bene- 
fit for  Shakespeare  Fund,  389 

Booth,  J.  B.  Ill,  story  he  identified 
George  as  John  Booth,  his  uncle,  339; 
F.  L.  Bates  as  to  "voluntary  statement" 

by,  354-5 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  in  Albany  (Feb. 
'61),  22,  75,  88;  in  Baltimore,  burning 
bridges  (in  Apr.  '61),  75,  124;  on  Lin- 
coln's election,  75-6;  birth,  name,  early 
life,  76;  at  school  in  Baltimore,  79;  pri- 
vate theatricals  there,  80;  at  school  in 
Cockeysville  and  Catonsville,  80-1;  longs 
for  notoriety,  81;  early  reading,  82;  poli- 
tics, 82,  110-1,  390;  acting  in  Baltimore, 
Philadelphia,  Richmond,  83-7;  with 
Richmond  Grays  at  John  Brown's  hang- 
ing, 86-7;  wounds  and  accidents,  87-8, 
93;  in  the  West,  88;  stars  in  Baltimore, 
New  York,  Boston,  88-91;  compared  with 
Edwin,  89,  91,  92,  96,  99;  appreciated  by 
press,  actors,  managers;  earning  power, 
91-2;  looks  and  personality,  92;  and 
the  ladies,  94;  faults  as  an  actor,  94-5; 
acrobatics  and  leaps,  95,  215-6;  spoiled 
and  uncontrolled,  96;  first  appearance  in 
Washington  (Apr.  '63),  97;  opens  in  New 


Orleans,  99;  hoarseness^  not  cause  of  leav- 
ing stage,  100;  in  "Julius  Caesar"  with 
Junius  and  Edwin,  101,  110;  in  benefits 
in  Washington,  102,  125;  invests  in  oil 
lands,  103;  inquires  about  farm  prop- 
erties in  Lower  Maryland,  103-4;  rents 
stable  in  alley  behind  Ford's  Theatre, 
104;  in  New  York  during  the  Draft 
Riots,  110-1;  at  Asia's  home  in  Phila- 
delphia, 111;  smuggles  quinine  into  the 
Confederacy,  111;  in  Montreal,  during 
winter  of  '64-5,  111-2;  leaves  wardrobe 
there,  111-2;  in  Montreal,  as  told  by 
lies,  112;  Sheridan's  spy  story  about, 
112-4;  valentine  to  Miss  Hale,  113-4; 
"turn  towards  the  evil,"  114;  tells 
Chester  of  abduction  plot,  114-5;  ac- 
quaintance with  Paine,  116-7;  subsidizes 
conspirators,  119;  quarrels  with  Arnold, 
119;  sends  trunk  to  Baltimore,  120;  pos- 
sibly planned  abduction  for  Mar.  4,  '65, 
121;  probably  not  connected  with  plot  to 
burn  New  York,  123;  short  of  funds  after 
failure  of  abduction  plot,  123,  125; 
spending  and  drinking  heavily,  125,  148; 
engaged  to  Miss  Hale,  says  report,  126; 
reported  engaged  to  Maggie  Mitchell, 
126;  is  urged  by  Simonds  to  quit  Wash- 
ington for  oil  country,  126;  rages  at 
Arnold  and  O'Laughlin,  139;  weight  and 
physique,  140;  sells  horses,  140;  his 
mother's  sad  letter  to,  140-1;  expresses 
Southern  sympathies,  141-2;  "a  bit 
crazed"  (John  Deery),  142;  believed  to 
be  prowler  around  Capitol  and  Execu- 
tive Mansion,  142-3;  says  he  could  have 
killed  Lincoln  on  Mar.  4,  '65,  143;  Young 
asks  him  to  play  Richard,  143-4;  vows  to 
"put  him  [Lincoln]  through,"  144;  says 
Lincoln  should  be  killed,  146;  pays  for 
box  at  Grover's,  147-8;  not  at  National 
Hotel  on  night  of  Apr.  13,  148;  writes 
last  letter  to  his  mother,  148;  has  hair 
trimmed,  149;  on  morning  of  Apr.  14, 
149;  learns  Lincoln  will  attend  perform- 
ance at  Ford's,  152;  hires  bay  mare,  152; 
at  Willard's,  152-3;  at  Mrs.  Surratt's, 
153;  in  Ford's  Theatre,  153-4;  at  Talta- 
vull's,  154;  at  Pumphrey's,  154;  leaves 
card  for  Browning,  156;  meets  Paine  and 
others,  166;  jests  with  Harry  Ford  and 
Buckingham,  177;  seen  by  Miss  Gourlay, 
178;  shoots  Lincoln,  vaults  to  stage,  dis- 
appears, 181;  doubts  as  to  whether  it  was 
he  who  shot  Lincoln,  184;  Hawk's  testi- 
mony, 188;  named  by  press,  190;  Stan- 
ton's bulletin  regarding,  191;  police  in- 
quiry points  to,  192;  contents  of  his 
trunk,  192;  false  reports  of  capture  of, 
194;  his  letter  to  Intelligencer  destroyed 
by  Matthews,  201-2;  gimlet  found  in  his 
trunk,  206;  sometimes  engaged  box  7, 
206;  wounds  Rathbone,  stabs  at  Withers, 
knocks  Burroughs  down,  207-9;  Stewart 


411 


sees  him  turn  to  right,  209;  time  when 
shot  was  fired,  214;  his  vault  from  box, 
215-6;  his  landing  on  the  stage,  216-8; 
his  shout,  219;  accounts  of  his  entering 
the  box,  221-3;  many  suspects  held  on 
resemblance  to,  228-9;  rumor  he  hides  in 
Washington,  230-1,  235;  man  giving 
name  at  Navy  Yard  bridge  supposed  to 
be  decoy,  235;  packet  left  with  the 
Clarkes  by,  240-3;  misrepresents  his  part 
in  the  John  Brown  affair,  243;  one  of 
Senator  Hale's  daughters  his  fiancee, 
243-4;  note  from  E.  S.  (Ella  Starr)  to, 
244;  probably  got  cipher  from  Howell, 
244-5;  crosses  Navy  Yard  bridge,  246; 
joined  by  Herold,  246;  his  leg  swollen 
and  painful,  246;  has  leg  set  by  Dr. 
Mudd,  248-9;  goes  to  Samuel  Cox's,  250; 
shows  initials  on  wrist,  250;  in  hiding  for 
six  days,  250-1;  embarks  to  cross  Po- 
tomac, 252-3;  in  Virginia,  253  et  seq.; 
writes  note  to  Stewart,  254;  at  Port 
Royal  and  Garrett's,  255-6;  looks  and 
condition,  255;  will  not  be  taken  alive, 
255;  tells  Annie  Garrett  the  North  will 
revolt  against  Johnson,  256;  hides  in 
woodland  to  escape  soldiers,  257;  sleeps 
in  tobacco-house  with  Herold,  257; 
threatens  Garrett,  parleys  with  Baker, 
bids  Herold  go,  263-4;  shot  and  carried 
from  barn,  dies  on  Garrett  porch,  265-6; 
last  words,  effects  in  pockets,  266;  body 
carried  to  Belle  Plain,  267;  identified  at 
Garrett's,  267-9;  who  shot  him?  269-70; 
body  taken  up  Potomac  on  Ide,  273;  put 
aboard  Montauk,  274;  identified  there, 
274-5;  account  of  scar  on  neck,  276  et 
seq.;  reward  paid  for  capture,  284; 
abundant  portraits  of,  284-6;  photograph 
taken  on  Montauk,  285;  Edwin's  portrait 
not  used  in  Conspiracy  Trial  as  if  of 
John,  286-7;  sale  of  portraits  forbidden, 
286  n;  disposal  of  body  of,  287  et  seq., 
reports  that  it  was  sunk,  289-91;  burial 
in  penitentiary  building,  293-5;  reburial 
in  arsenal  warehouse,  305-6;  body  re- 
moved to  Baltimore,  306  et  seq.;  in 
Weaver's  vault  at  Green  Mount,  313-4; 
committal  and  burial  there,  315-6;  grave 
not  marked  by  separate  stone,  321;  his 
theatrical  wardrobe  salvaged,  322;  cos- 
tumes burned  by  Edwin,  322-3;  survival 
tales,  324  et  seq.;  reported  in  Shanghai 
and  Pelew  Islands,  325-6;  as  the  Rev. 
J.  G.  Armstrong  of  Richmond  and  At- 
lanta, 326-8;  as  Sinclair  of  Wartburg, 
Tenn.,  328-9;  a  wanderer  in  Brazil,  329; 
escapes  to  Nassau  and  England,  329-30; 
not  shot  in  barn,  Kenzie  says,  331-2;  as 
St.  Helen,  332-7;  George  confesses  he  is 
Booth,  338;  George's  body  identified  by 
Bates,  339;  Bates  says  he  was  attorney 
for  Booth  for  nearly  forty  years,  339;  ar- 
rested   by    Dana    on    Good    Friday     (so 


Dana  says),  341;  Demond's  letter,  342-3; 
did  he  become  St.  Helen  or  George? 
350;  handwriting,  353;  and  Mr.  Smythe, 
361-2;  wives  and  widows  of,  362  et  seq.; 
impossible  story  of  home  in  Shenandoah 
Valley,  366,  371;  Wilfred  Clarke's  state- 
ment regarding  story  of  John  in  London, 
371-2;  Alger's  story  of  Booth's  tears, 
373-4;  Got's  diary,  379-80;  glorified  in 
South,  384-5;  baseless  stories  that  he  was 
agent  for  some  interest,  385-8;  Southern 
agents  in  Montreal  think  him  Federal 
spy,  388;  no  proof  that  Benjamin  sub- 
sidized him,  388-9;  not  without  fame  in 
theater,  389;  his  monomania  compared 
to  that  of  Russian  nihilist,  390 

Booth,  J.  W.,  of  Sewanee,  Tenn., 
cabinetmaker,  handsome,  theatrical, 
marries  Louisa  Payne,  confesses  he  killed 
Lincoln,  vanishes,  358-9;  $100,000  com- 
ing to  him  from  group  that  planned  the 
murder,  358;  could  not  have  been  St. 
Helen  or  George,  360 

Booth,  L.  I.:  see  Norman,  Mrs.  Art 

Booth,  Mary  Ann  (Mrs.  J.  B.),  mother 
of  John,  80,  101;  living  with  Edwin,  110; 
her  sad  letter  to  John,  140-1;  his  last 
letter  to  her,  148;  his  note  to  her,  in 
packet  to  Asia,  240;  at  Weaver's  under- 
taking rooms,  310-1;  at  Green  Mount 
Cemetery,  315;  buried  there  with  her 
husband,  321  n;  St.  Helen  says  he  met 
her  in  San  Francisco,  344;  story  of  her 
half-sister,  355;  death  in  '85,  363  n;  sees 
John  on  street  in  London,  according  to 
story,  371 

Booth,  Richard,  John's  grandfather, 
78-9;  buried  in  Baltimore  Cemetery,  310; 
reburied  in  Green  Mount,  314 

Booth,  Rita:  see  Henderson,  Mrs.  Al 

Booth,  Rosalie  (Rose),  cares  for  her 
mother,  80;  living  with  Edwin  in  New 
York,  110;  named  in  her  mother's  letter 
to  John,  141;  and  in  his  last  letter  to 
his  mother,  148;  at  Weaver's  undertak- 
ing rooms,  310;  at  Green  Mount  commit- 
tal, 315;  blackmailed  by  "widow,"  363 

Boston,  riots  in,  40;  Booth's  success 
there,  89-90,  100,  389;  Rita's  mother  in 
stock,  365,  367 

Boston  Museum,  John  Booth  there 
('62-3),  89-90;  ('64),  100,  389;  Rita's 
mother  there  in  stock,  365,  367 

Bowling  Green,  Va.,  Jett's  sweetheart 
in,  254;  Garrett's  between  Port  Royal 
and,  255;  Ruggles  and  Jett  go  to,  255; 
Jett   arrested   there,   262 

Bowman,  Rev.  Thomas,  Senate  chap- 
lain, sees  prowling  stranger  in  gallery, 
142-3 

Bowman,  Dr.  W.  T.,  of  Lower  Mary- 
land, Booth  meets,    104 

Box  at  Ford's  Theatre,  in  abduction 
plot,   115,   117;   double  size  for  Lincoln 


412 


party,  150;  partition  removed,  150,  206; 
described,  168-9;  furniture,  171;  height 
above  stage,  171,  215-6;  only  box  taken 
Good  Friday  night,  172;  mortise,  bar, 
hole  in  door,  205-6;  Booth  sometimes 
hired  box  7,  206;  diagram,  208;  entrance 
by  vestibule  door  only,  209;  was  Laura 
Keene  in  box?  209-10;  Mrs.  Willard  says 
she  was  in  next  box,  212;  distance  from 
stage,  215;  inspected  by  Military  Com- 
mission, 217;  Forbes  not  in  box  when 
shot  fired,  223;  Tad  Lincoln  not  there; 
list  of  occupants,  224;  "black  fate"  of 
them  all,  226-7;  story  other  boxes  rented 
but  unoccupied,  239;  plan  to  close  box  if 
theater  re-opened,  296;  St.  Helen  on 
Johnson's  promises  about,  342 

Boyd,  name  given  by  Herold  to  Booth 
and  himself,  255;  Booth  introduced  to 
Garretts  as,  255-6 

Boyle,  desperado,  suspected  of  attack 
on  Sewards,  183 

Branson,  Mrs.  M.  A.,  Paine  at  her 
boarding-house  in  Baltimore,   115,   123 

Brazil,  survivor  Booth  in,  329 

Breckinridge,  J.  C.,  part  to  be  played 
by,  had  Buchanan  been  abducted,  14; 
officially  announces  Lincoln's  election, 
19;  telegram  from,  to  Davis  on  Lincoln's 
murder,  384 

Bridges,  Washington,  9,  193;  vigilance 
at,  relaxed    (Apr.  '65),   193 

Bridges  destroyed  by  Baltimore  au- 
thorities, 45 

Brooks,  Preston,  assaults  Sumner  in 
U.  S.  Senate    ('56),  52 

Brown,  John,  Pinkerton's  opinion  of, 
47;  Booth  at  execution  of,  86-7;  Booth's 
letter  refers  to  Brown's  crime,  241 

Browning,  O.  H.,  Lamon  tells  him  his 
fears  of  Lincoln's  assassination,  137-8; 
criticizes  Stanton  for  closing  Ford's,  297; 
says  Seward  suspected  Benjamin  of  back- 
ing Booth,  388-9 

Browning,  W.  A.,  Johnson's  secretary, 
gets  card  from  Booth,  156,  386 

Brutus,  Edwin  Booth  plays,  in  "Julius 
Caesar,"  101;  John  compares  himself 
with,  302;  Booth  and  Got  discuss  the 
character,  379;  Flournoy  compares  Booth 
to,  384-5;  "Our  Brutus,"  poem  glorifying 
Booth,  385 

Bryant,  W.  L.,  takes  Booth  to  Dr. 
Stewart,   253 

Bryantown,  Md.,  Booth  at,  looking  for 
land,  104;  mails  go  by  way  of,  108;  Dana 
there   in   pursuit  of  Booth,   340 

Buchanan,  James,  plot  to  abduct  (Dec. 
'60),  14-5;  message  on  troops  in  Wash- 
ington, 19;  Lincoln  meets  him  and  Cab- 
inet, 30;  annoyed  by  Baltimore  mob  in 
'57,  41;  at  Lincoln's  inauguration,  54; 
characterization  of,  by  Benjamin,  55; 
Stanton  writes  to,  56 


Buckingham,  J.  E.,  doorkeeper  at 
Ford's  Theatre  on  Good  Friday,  177; 
sees  Booth  cross  stage  after  shot,  181; 
unfastens  doors  and  goes  for  Mayor 
Wallach,   183;  on  time  of  Booth's  shot, 

214 

"Bucktails,"     Pennsylvania     infantry, 

guard  Executive  Mansion,  63 

Bullard,  F.  L.,  Boston  Herald,  on  Got's 
story  of  Booth  in  Paris,  380 

Burgdorf,  Louis,  usher  in  Executive 
Mansion,  60 

Burial,  false,  Moxley's  story  of  ('03), 
312-3;  rise  of  myth,  possible  explana- 
tion by  Mears,  318;  other  myths  of 
burial  by  proxy,  320 

Burke,  Francis,  Lincoln's  coachman, 
62,  165;  drives  to  Ford's,  165,  168;  leaves 
carriage  for  a  drink,  175 

Burroughs  ("Peanuts"),  Ford's  The- 
atre stage  doorman,  cares  for  Booth's 
horses,  104,  154;  at  Taltavull's,  156; 
holds  Booth's  horse  Friday  night,  174-5, 
201;  Booth  knocks  him  down  with  butt 
of  knife,  209 

Cabinet,  Lincoln's  selections  and  their 
friction,  128;  Lincoln  tells  his  dream  to, 
157-8;  and  discusses  reconstruction,  158; 
first  meeting  of  Johnson's,  197;  Confed- 
erate cabinet  not  connected  with  Booth, 
383 

California,  Edwin  and  June  Booth  in, 
80;  St.  Helen  there,  344,  355;  Izola  goes 
there  ('68)  to  meet  John,  367 

Calvert  County,  Md.,  search  for  Booth 
in,  198 

Cameron,  Josie  (Mrs.  C.  A.),  Bates' 
story  George  wrote  a  play  for,  350 

Campbell,  J.  E.,  story  of  wager  in 
Calcutta  that  Booth  is  alive,  324 

Cap:  see  Scotch  cap 

Capitol,  Washington,  in  early  'sixties, 
described,  4 

Carland,  L.  J.,  costumer  of  Ford's, 
meets  Booth  coming  out  of  saloon,  175; 
tells  Hess  the  time,  202-3 

Caroline  County,  Va.,  Jett's  acquaint- 
ance in,  254 

Carpenter,  Frank,  Lincoln  tells  of 
threats,  58;  walks  with  Lincoln,  64 

Carroll  prison,  Washington,  Spangler 
taken  to,  207;  Weichmann  at,  237;  three 
Ford  brothers  held  there,  239 

Cartter,  David,  of  D.  C.  Supreme 
Court,  with  Stanton  takes  depositions 
about  murder,  186 

Catonsville,  Md.,  John  Booth  at  school 
in,  80 

Cedar  Cliff,  Ban-as'  place  at  Cos  Cob, 
bought  by  Edwin  Booth,  370 

Ceylon,  story  Booth  survives  in,  324 

Chambrun,  Marquis  de,  on  River 
Queen,    133-4;    as    to   Confederate   sym- 


413 


pathy  in  Washington,  135;  as  to  Stan- 
ton's tribute  to  Lincoln,   189 

Chapman,  Blanche  (Mrs.  H.  Clay 
Ford),  on  Booth's  engagement  to  Maggie 
Mitchell,  126;  reclaims  rocker,  171  n; 
regarding  Booth  at  Ford's  on  night  of 
Apr.  14,  177  n;  present  when  Booth's 
body  was  identified  at  Weaver's,  310-1; 
cuts  a  lock  of  John's  hair,  311 

Chapman,  Ella,  at  Weaver's,  310-1 

Chapman,  (Miss)  J.  A.,  sees  only  Miss 
Harris  in  "state  box,"  172;  on  applause 
at  allusion  to  Lincoln,  173;  on  distance 
from  box  to  stage,  215;  says  Booth 
shouted    "The   South    is   avenged,"   219 

Chapman,  J.  L.,  resembles  Booth,  de- 
tained thrice  in  day,  228 

Charles  County,  Md.,  Confederate 
sympathy  in,  104,  107,  108,  117;  on  route 
of  abduction  plot,  118;  story  Booth  was 
traced  there,  230;  home  of  horsemen  at 
Navy  Yard  bridge,  231 

Charles  de  Moor,  John  Booth  as,  89 

Charleston,  S.  C,  anti-Northern  spirit 
in,  46 

Charlestown,  Va.  (W.  Va.),  John 
Brown  in  prison  at,  86 

Charlotte  Hall,  Md.,  mails  go  south 
by,   108 

Chase,  S.  P.,  Secretary  of  Treasury, 
intrigues  against  Lincoln,  resigns,  ap- 
pointed Chief  Justice,  128-9;  Lamon 
and  Hay  think  the  appointment  impos- 
sible,   137;   swears  in  Johnson,    196-7 

Chester,  S.  K.,  Trebonius  in  "Julius 
Caesar,"  110;  as  to  Booth  in  Montreal, 
112  n;  refuses  to  join  Booth's  plot,  114-5; 
Booth  tells  him  of  nearness  to  Lincoln, 
Mar.  4,  '65,  122;  Booth  tells  him  he  is 
short  of  funds,  123;  with  Booth  at 
"House  of  Lords,"    143 

Chicago,  111.,  Booth  plays  in,  88; 
breaks  promise  to  go  there  in  winter  of 
'64-5,  103;  Edwin  shot  at  there,  not  in 
Cincinnati,   369 

China  seas,  pirate  Booth   in,  325 

Chittenden,  L.  E.,  Scott  tells  him  of 
plans  to  protect  Washington,  17  n;  at 
Peace  Convention,  30;  on  secession  ac- 
tivities  in  Baltimore,  75 

Christ,  Mrs.  J.  M.,  of  Beloit,  Wis.,  her 
story  of  Booth's  escape,  329-31 

Christ  Church,  Baltimore,  Weaver 
sexton  of,  306;  attended  by  Booths; 
John  went  to  Sunday  School,  307;  Dud- 
ley, rector  of,  asks  James  to  read  serv- 
ice at  Booth  burial,  316-7 

Christian,  Joseph,  mythical  valet- 
coachman  to  Lincoln  in  magazine  ar- 
ticle, 374 

Cincinnati,  O.,  riots  in,  40;  Booth 
plays  in,  88 

Cipher  code  found  in  Booth's  trunk, 
same  as  found  in  Benjamin's  rooms,  192, 


2^4-5;  and  same  as  Howell  taught 
Weichmann,  245 

City  Point,  Va.,  Lincoln  visits  Grant 
and  hospitals  at,  132-3;  Mrs.  Lincoln 
twice  at,   159 

Clark,  Gustavus,  formerly  of  Boston, 
named  as  one  of  those  who  carried  Lin- 
coln to  Petersen's,  376 

Clark,  W.  T.,  War  Dept.  clerk,  rented 
room  at  Petersen's  where  Lincoln  died, 
378 

Clarke,  Asia  (Booth),  John's  sister  and 
adviser,  75,  79,  80  n,  82,  101,  109;  char- 
acterizes young  John,  82;  John  in  her 
Philadelphia  home,  111,  114;  on  his  pass 
and  smuggling,  111;  Junius  tells  her  of 
John's  valentine,  114;  sees  John  "turn 
to  evil,"  114;  on  his  engagement  to 
Miss  Hale,  126;  disagrees  with  him  on 
King  Lincoln,  141;  guard  in  her  house 
after  murder,  239;  on  bitterness  of  press 
to  family,  239;  opens  packet  left  with 
her  by  John;  its  contents,  240-3;  letter 
from  Edwin  to,  about  John's  fiancee, 
243;  describes  John's  tattoo,  274;  story 
of  seeing  John  in  London,  371-2 

Clarke,  J.  S.,  husband  of  Asia  Booth, 
93,  111;  John  attacks  for  remark  about 
Jeff  Davis,  141-2;  in  "Our  American 
Cousin,"  150;  imprisoned  after  murder, 
239;  Asia  gives  him  contents  of  packet 
Booth  left,  240 

Clarke,  Wilfred,  actor,  son  of  Asia 
Booth,  story  of  meeting  John  Booth  in 
London  explained  by,  371-2 

Clay,  C.  C,  Alabama  Senator,  51; 
Confederate  agent  in  Montreal,  112;  re- 
ward for  his  arrest,  385 

Clay-Clopton,  Mrs.  (Virginia),  Wash- 
ington  social   leader,   51 

Cleary,  W.  C,  reward  offered  for  ar- 
rest, 385 

Cloak,  military,  and  Scotch  cap,  myth 
of,  31-3 

Coat  found  near  Fort  Saratoga,  im- 
portant clue,  234-5 

Cobb,  C.  F.,  schoolmate  of  Booth 
called  to  identify  Booth's  body;  told 
unnecessary,  280 

Cobb,  Howell,  resigns  from  Buchan- 
an's Cabinet,   14 

Cobb,  Sergt.  S.  T„  tells  of  three  horse- 
men at  Navy  Yard  bridge,  231  et  seq.; 
on  Booth  photograph,  286 

Cockeysville,  Md.,  John  Booth  at 
school  in,  80 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  at  Grover's  Theatre 
with  Lincolns,  67;  invited  to  Ford's, 
Good  Friday,  164 

Collins,  C.  M.,  signal  officer,  identifies 
Booth's  body  on  Montauk,  276 

Columbus,  Ga.,  Booth  is  shot  at, 
88 

Committee  of  Five,  House  of  Repre- 


4H 


sentatives,  reports  on  plots  against  Fed- 
eral government,  17,  46-7 

Confederate  leaders,  supposed  guilt 
of,  184;  signature  of  Booth's  letter  shows 
them  not  responsible  for  abduction  plot, 
243;  attitude  toward  Lincoln's  murder, 
383-4;  Johnson  offers  rewards  for  ar- 
rest of,  385-6;  Lawrence  says  no  evi- 
dence against,  387;  Stevens  says  "gentle- 
men, incapable  of  being  assassins,"  388; 
Rogers  says  no  evidence  against,  388 

Confederate  Veteran,  in  '13  prints  song 
glorifying  Booth,  385 

Confederates  in  Washington,  smug- 
glers, 9;  paroled  officers,  11;  runners  and 
agents,   12;  in  Old  Capitol  prison,   187 

Conger,  Col.  E.  J.,  sent  into  Va.  by 
Baker  to  find  Booth,  259-60;  makes 
house-to-house  search,  visits  doctors  and 
ferries,  261;  arrests  Jett  and  is  guided 
to  Garrett's,  262;  sets  fire  to  tobacco- 
house,  264,  and  enters,  265;  Baker  thinks 
he  shot  Booth,  265,  269;  takes  Booth's 
belongings,  leaves  for  Belle  Plain  and 
Washington,  266;  identification  of 
Booth,  268;  finds  that  Corbett  shot 
Booth,  269-70;  on  shot  that  killed  Booth, 
272-3 

Conover,  Sandford:  see  Dunham,  C.  A. 

Conspiracy  Trial,  testimony  at,  149  n; 
Murphy,  reporter  at,  knew  Weichmann, 
gave  opinion  on  guilt  of  other  conspira- 
tors, 238;  Ella  Turner  subpcenaed  but 
not  put  on  stand,  244;  Weichmann's 
explanation  of  cipher,  245;  Conger's 
evidence  about  shot  that  killed  Booth, 
272;  photographs  of  Booth  at,  286;  de- 
fense counsel,  286;  records  incomplete, 
286;  Edwin  Booth  subpcenaed  but  not 
called,  287;  in  penitentiary;  sentences, 
295;  Dana's  testimony;  Dr.  G.  D.  Mudd's, 
340;  no  evidence  of  "general  conspiracy"; 
prosecution  open  to  charges  of  suborn- 
ing perjury,  388 

Constitutional   Guards,   Baltimore,   46 

Constitutional  Union  (Washington), 
on  secret  burial  of  Booth,  288 

Constitutional  Union  party,  41 

Continental  Hotel,  Philadelphia,  Lin- 
coln and  suite  joined  there  by  Pinker- 
ton   (Feb.  '61),  25,  47 

Cool,  Booth  plays  role  of,  85 

Copperhead  (New  York),  accuses  Lin- 
coln of  not  maintaining  Constitution, 
390-1;  threat  to  stick  Lincoln's  head  on 
pole,  391 

Copperheads,  opposition  to  war,  130; 
rejoicing  in  North  over  Lincoln's  death, 
382-3;  hatred  of  Lincoln,  389  et  seq. 

Corbett,  Thomas  ("Boston"),  fanatic, 
how  he  shot  Booth,  later  history  of, 
269-72;  Kenzie's  story  of  Corbett's  shoot- 
ing man  Kenzie  knew  not  to  be  Booth, 
331-2 


Corey,  John,  Pennsylvania  artillery- 
man, may  have  helped  carry  Lincoln  to 
Petersen's,  376 

"Corsican  Brothers,  The,"  John  Booth 
in,  90,  98 

Cos  Cob,  Conn.,  Edwin  Booth's  home 
at,  370;  house  bought  in  1872;  not  lent 
to  John  in  '59,  370;  Peleg  Weaver  not  in 
Cos  Cob  until  '71,  369-70;  whole  story 
of  marriage  there  incredible,  370 

Cote  Street,  Montreal,  Booth's  lodg- 
ings in,  112 

Cox,  Samuel,  Booth  and  Herold 
helped  by,  250-1;  by  Cox's  overseer 
Ruddy,  says  St.  Helen,  343 

Coyle,  J.  F.,  editor  of  Intelligencer, 
denies  receiving  message  from  Booth, 
201 

Crawford,  Lieut.  A.  M.  S.,  sits  near 
"state  box"  and  sees  dark  man  give 
Forbes  a  card,  179;  thought  Lincoln's 
assailant  resembled  the  Booths,  184,  286; 
wrong  in  supposing  Hanscom  entered 
box,  221;  saw  Forbes  in  dress  circle,  223 

Crockett,  Ashley  W.  (grandson  of 
Davy),  on  St.  Helen,  345-6 

Croggon,  J.  H.,  reporter  on  Star  as 
assistant  of  Harvey  sees  Booth's  body, 
308-9 

Crook,  W.  H.,  special  guard  for  Lin- 
coln, 69;  hears  Lincoln  groaning  in 
sleep,  127;  Lincoln  tells  him  of  possible 
murder,  162;  excused  from  going  to 
Ford's,  163,  221;  on  orders  to  Parker, 
221;  as  to  Parker's  seat  in  dress  circle, 
221;  on  Parker;  contrasted  with  Parker, 
223-4 

Crowninshield,  W.  W.,  U.S.N.,  identi- 
fies Booth's  body  on  Montauk,  276 

Crutchfield,  George,  writes  about  John 
Booth,  86,  87  n 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  breaks  open 
wound  on  Booth's  neck  and  makes  scar, 
277 


Daily  Morning  Chronicle  (Washing- 
ton), says  Booth  was  murderer,  190,  192; 
on  search  for  him  in  Baltimore,  198 

Daily  National  Republican  (Washing- 
ton), Hanscom  editor  of,  178;  on  ex- 
rebels  in  Washington,  184  n;  false  news 
of  Booth's  capture,  194;  on  Booth's  spur 
catching  in  flag,  217;  Hanscom  says  there 
was  no  guard,  221;  on  riotous  joy  over 
Lincoln's  death  in  California  town,  383 

Daily  Whig  (Richmond,  Va.),  on  Lin- 
coln's disguise,  32-3;  carried  seal  of  Vir- 
ginia and  motto  "Sic  semper  tyrannis," 
219 

Daly,  Augustin,  misrepresentation  of, 
in  "This  One  Mad  Act,"  368-70 

Dana,  C.  A.,  with  Stanton  at  Petersen 
house,    187;    on    Stanton's    energy,    187; 


415 


finds  cipher  code  in  Benjamin's  suite, 
192,  244;  his  brother  David,  199 

Dana,  Lieut.  David,  brother  of  C.  A. 
Dana,  leads  cavalry  detail  to  Piscataway, 
199;  in  '97  exaggerates  his  part  in  pur- 
suit of  Booth  and  supplies  material  for 
Bates,  340-1;  his  misstatements,  341;  does 
not  follow  up  tip  from  Mudd,  340  n; 
stopped  Herold  and  Booth  Good  Friday; 
ordered  to  release  them,  341;  letter  from 
Demond  about  Booth  and  T.  B.  road, 
342-3;  Bates  misrepresents  his  identifica- 
tion of  the  St.  Helen  tintype,  354 

D'Arcy,  Izola  Martha:  see  Mills,  Izola 
Martha 

Dark  man  at  Ford's,  gives  Forbes  a 
card  for  Lincoln,  179,  222;  witnesses 
avoid  identifying  him  as  Booth,  188; 
did  not  try  to  enter  box  unobserved,  221; 
Forbes  let  him  in,  222,  224 

Daughter  of  Booth:  Laura  Ida  (Mrs. 
Norman),  357,  360,  364;  Rita  (Mrs. 
Henderson),  364  et  seq.;  unnamed  in 
"widow's"  letter,  364 

Davenport,  E.  L.,  with  Wallack  leases 
old  Washington  Theatre,  118;  with  Wal- 
lack in  "Aladdin,"  147 

Davenport,  Jean  M.  (Mrs.  Lander), 
tells  Hay  of  plot  against  Lincoln  ('6i), 
56 

Davidson,  Garrie,  Edwin  Booth's  at- 
tendant, tells  of  Edwin's  burning  John's 
theatrical  wardrobe,  322-3 

Davidson,  Col.  J.  H.,  in  1922  tells  of 
Booth's  burial  in  acid  at  Portsmouth, 
Va.,  319 

Davis,  H.  W.,  speaks  at  Know-Nothing 
meeting  attended  by  Booth,  83;  opposes 
Lincoln  in  '64,  131;  of  counsel  for  J.  T. 
Ford,  296;  would  have  tried  to  impeach 
Lincoln,  390 

Davis,  Jefferson,  Booth  holds  him 
"sacred,"  attacks  J.  S.  Clarke  for  dis- 
paraging, 141-2;  Booth  as  to  Lincoln  in 
Davis'  house  in  Richmond,  146;  H.  C. 
Ford  jokes  to  Booth  about,  152;  story  he 
sent  Booth  to  France,  380;  at  news  of 
Lincoln's  death,  384;  Sam  Houston  char- 
acterizes, 384;  Johnson  offers  reward  for 
arrest  of,  385-6 

DeBar,  Ben,  John  Booth's  terms  to, 
92;  uncle  of  Blanche  DeBar,  372;  called 
Dis  DeBar  in  "This  One  Mad  Act,"  372 

DeBar,  Blanche,  her  story  of  voice  she 
thought  John's,  372;  called  Dis  De  Bar 
Booth  in  "This  One  Mad  Act,"  372 

DeBonay,  J.  L.,  Ford's  responsible 
utility,  173;  calls  Spangler  to  hold 
Booth's  horse,  174;  in  preliminary  police 
investigation,  192 

Deery,  John,  notes  Booth's  strange- 
ness, 142;  sends  boy  to  engage  box  at 
Grover's  for  Booth,   147-8 

Democrat    (El    Reno),    George   adver- 


tised in,  348;  editor  of,  characterizes 
George,  350 

Dempsey,  Lieut.  J.  W„  on  Booth 
photographs,    286 

Denson,  Colonel,  supplies  muskets  for 
Baltimore's   "three  glorious  days,"  45 

Dentist  identifies  Booth's  body,  280, 
308,  311 

Dent's  Meadow,  Md.,  in  skiff  hidden 
there  Booth  and  Herold  try  to  cross 
Potomac,  252 

Deringer,  pistol  found  in  "state  box," 
185;  single-shot,  cap-fired,  no  cartridge, 
207-8;  many  "fakes"  in  collections;  genu- 
ine in  War  Dept.,  208-9;  shot  supposed 
to  be  part  of  play,  216;  Booth  could  not 
have  used  it  from  the  wings,  376-7 

Detroit,  Mich.,  Booth  playing  in,  88 

Devlin,  Mary  (Mrs.  Edwin  Booth),  90, 
370  n 

Diary,  Booth's:  see  memorandum  book 

Dickens,  Charles,  on  Stanton's  knowl- 
edge of  Dickens'  works,  130;  his  version 
of  Lincoln's  dream,   158 

Disguise,  myth  of  Lincoln's,  31-3; 
rumors  of  Booth's,  235,  292 

Disinterment  of  Booth  in  1867,  305-6; 
in  1869,  308 

Dispatch  (Richmond),  calls  Lincoln 
ape,  ass,  tyrant,  390;  see  also  Times- 
Dispatch 

Dispatches,  early,  about  Lincoln's 
murder,  184-5;  naming  Booth,  190 

Dix,  Dorothea  Lynde,  on  conspiracy 
to  seize  Washington,  36 

Dix,  Gen.  J.  A.,  Stanton's  official  bul- 
letin to,  indicating  Booth  the  assassin, 
191;  Stanton  telegraphs  that  Booth  and 
Herold  are  taken,  281 

Doctors  in  attendance  on  Lincoln 
after  the  shooting,  378 

Doherty,  Lieut.  E.  P.,  with  men  from 
16th  N.  Y.  Cavalry  sent  into  Va.  to  ap- 
prehend Booth,  259-60;  at  capture  of 
Jett,  262;  stations  men  around  Garrett 
barn,  263;  binds  Herold  to  tree,  264;  his 
men  can't  put  out  fire,  265;  Herold  in 
his  charge,  267;  as  to  Corbett  and  the 
shooting  of  Booth,  270 

Donelson,  C.  J.,  old  sailor,  tells  of 
meeting  Booth  in  Pelew  Islands,  325-6 

Donn,  Alphonso,  special  guard  for 
Lincoln,  69,    165-6 

Doster,  Maj.  W.  E.,  on  plots  against 
Lincoln,  57-8;  many  duties  as  provost 
marshal,  58;  on  grief  in  streets  as  hearse 
passed  with  Lincoln's  body,  191;  de- 
scribes Ella  Turner,  244;  counsel  for 
Atzerodt  and  Paine,  244,  286,  287 

Douglas,  S.  A.,  defeated  for  President, 
13;    at   Lincoln's   inauguration,   54 

Dow,  Gen.  Neal,  on  consequence  of 
Lincoln's  not  being  renominated,   131 

Downing,  Col.  Otto  J.,  said  to  be  one 


416 


of  five  who  carried  Lincoln  to  Peter- 
sen's, 376 

Doyle,  J.  H.,  Granbury  merchant,  on 
St.  Helen,  345 

Draft,  end  of,  146,  173;  interferes  with 
service  at  Executive  Mansion;  guards 
exempted,  220 

Draft  Riots  in  New  York,  Booth  there 
at  time  of,  110-1 

Drama,  Lincoln's  taste  for,  66-7 

Dream,  Lincoln's,  before  a  great  event, 
157-8;  as  told  by  Dickens  (according  to 
George  Eliot),   158 

Drew,  Mrs.  John,  with  John  Booth  in 
Philadelphia,   91 

Drinking  and  drunkenness,  in  Civil- 
War  Washington,  9,  235-6;  canard  of 
Lincoln's,  57;  of  J.  B.  Booth  (elder),  77; 
of  John  Booth,  125,  148;  of  St.  Helen, 
335>  347;  of  George,  346,  347,  350-1 

Driver,  Artman,  professionally  Art 
Norman,  husband  of  L.  I.  Booth,  359 

Dry  Tortugas,  Fla.,  Fort  Jefferson  on, 

295 

Dumont,  Enid  hotel  proprietor,  affi- 
davit of,  on  George's  suicide,  347  n 

Dunham,  Charles  A.,  untrustworthy 
testimony  on  abduction  plot,  122 

Dye,  Sergt.  J.  M.,  story  of  three  con- 
spirators and  time  called  thrice,  203; 
identifies  Spangler,  207 

Dyott,  John,  with  Laura  Keene  at 
Ford's,  145;  at  Taltavull's,  175,  202 

Eames,  Mrs.  Charles,  her  salon  in 
Washington,  10,  74 

Eastern  Branch,  118,  157;  crossed  by 
Navy  Yard  and  Benning's  bridges,  193 

"East  Lynne,"  Booth  plays  in,  86 

Eckert,  Maj.  T.  T.,  Paine's  "confes- 
sion" to,  123;  Lincoln  asks  Stanton  to  let 
him  go  to  Ford's;  Eckert  too  busy,  162-3; 
asked  not  as  guard  but  as  guest,  220;  on 
interrupted  telegraphic  service,  225-6; 
with  Col.  Baker  meets  the  Ide  carrying 
Booth's  body,  373;  at  penitentiary  repre- 
senting Stanton  when  Booth  was  buried, 
294;   testimony  as  to  grave,  294 

Edelin,  Columbus,  willing  to  shoot 
Lincoln  before  inauguration,   17 

Elmira,  N.  Y.,  Surratt  in,  149 

El  Reno,  Okla.,  D.  E.  George  there 
confesses  to  Mrs.  Harper  that  he  is 
Booth,  338;  George  in  debt  there,  at- 
tempts suicide,  346 

Emerson,  E.  A.,  admiration  for  Booth, 
106,  145;  on  Booth's  rage  against  Lin- 
coln, 145-6;  plays  Dundreary  on  Good 
Friday,  167,  173;  says  Miss  Keene  was  in 
box,  210 

Enid,  Okla.,  suicide  there  of  D.  E. 
George,  identified  as  Booth,  338,  347; 
Bates  comes,  finds  town  crowded,  338-9 

Enquirer    (Richmond,  Va.),  Christmas 


editorial  ('60)  urges  seizure  of  Wash- 
ington, 14 

Evelyn,  Alfred,  in  Bulwer-Lytton's 
"Money,"  John  Booth  plays,  90,  100 

Evening  Bulletin  (Philadelphia),  story 
that  Booth  got  by  sentry  at  box  by  giv- 
ing a  Governor's  name,  222;  on  hope  of 
speedy  arrest  of  Booth,  230 

Exchange    (Baltimore),  on  Lincoln,  43 

Exchange  of  prisoners,  one  object  of 
abduction  plot,  117 

Executive  Mansion,  in  'sixties,  de- 
scribed, 4,  11;  safeguarding  Lincoln  in, 
60  et  seq. 

Eyes,  Booth's,  hazel,  heavy-lidded,  92; 
body  at  Garrett's  identified  by,  269;  St. 
Helen's,  black,  335,  349;  George's,  deep 
blue,  349;  Bates  on  George's  uneven 
right  eyebrow;  denied  by  Robare; 
Booth's  gash,  352-3;  dark  eyes  of  Se- 
wanee  Booth,  358;  Rita's  big  ox  eyes, 
365  and  n 

Eyewitnesses  of  Lincoln's  murder,  180, 
209-10 

Farwell,  L.  J.,  tells  Johnson  Lincoln  is 
shot,  204 

Fatalism  of  Lincoln,  48,  61-2,  70 

Fearlessness  of  Lincoln,  65,  72-3 

Felton,  S.  M.,  with  Pinkerton  at  Phil- 
adelphia, 25;  employed  Pinkerton,  34-5; 
believed  plot  to  murder  Lincoln,  36 

Ferguson,  J.  P.,  saloonkeeper,  sees 
Booth  on  Friday,  154;  sees  Lincoln  at 
Ford's,  180;  sees  him  raise  head  after 
shot,  182;  as  to  noticing  Booth  near 
vestibule  door,  214;  on  Booth's  vaulting 
from  box,  216;  on  flags,  218 

Ferguson,  W.  J.,  praises  John  Booth, 
92;  as  to  Booth  on  Friday  afternoon, 
153-4;  plays  Harry  Vernon,  166-7;  wait- 
ing with  Laura  Keene,  179;  on  her  claim 
that  her  dress  was  stained  with  Lincoln's 
blood,  si  1;  on  distance  of  box  from 
stage,  215;  on  Booth's  jump,  216;  says 
Booth  did  not  shout  anything,  219 

Ferrandini,  Cipriano,  Baltimore  bar- 
ber, 18,  46-7 

Ficklin  plot  against  Lincoln,  56 

Field,  M.  B.,  reports  impression  Lin- 
coln will  recover,  201;  brings  Surgeon 
Hall  to  Petersen's,  378 

Field  glass,  Booth's,  266-7 

Flags  on  "state  box,"  Ford's  Theatre, 
171,  217-8;  Booth's  spur  catches  in 
Treasury  Guard's  colors,  217-8 

Fletcher,  John,  foreman  of  Nailor 
stable,  in  preliminary  police  examina- 
tion, 192;  knew  Herold  and  Atzerodt, 
232;  at  police  headquarters,  233-4;  de- 
scribes Herold,  gives  clue  to  Atzerodt, 
234 

Florida,  Mrs.  Christ's  Booth  escaped 
to,  330 


417 


Flournoy,  Colonel  of  Arkansas,  calls 
Booth  Brutus,  384-5 

Flower,  Frank,  on  Stanton's  tribute  to 
Lincoln,  189 

Floyd,  John  B.,  Buchanan's  Secy,  of 
War,  refuses  to  help  plot  to  abduct 
Buchanan,  15;  resigns  from  Cabinet,  18; 
warned  anonymously  of  Brown's  raid,  21 

Foard,  N.  E.,  of  Baltimore  Sun,  on 
identification  of  Booth's  body  at  Weav- 
er's, 311;  on  Moxley's  alleging  that  hair 
was  red,  313;  at  committal  and  burial  in 
Green  Mount,  315;  on  trouble  for  James, 
316 

Forbes,  Charles,  Lincoln's  footman,  67, 
168,  220;  leaves  post  at  Ford's  for  drink, 
171,  221;  Hanscom  gives  him  dispatch 
for  Lincoln,  178-9,  221;  dark  man  gives 
him  a  card,  179;  Forbes  lets  him  in,  222, 
225;  Lincoln's  only  regular  escort  till 
Nov.,  '64,  220;  seated  in  front  of  vesti- 
bule door,  221,  223;  witness  against 
Parker,  223;  untrustworthy  affidavit  of 
'92,  224 

Ford,  H.  Clay  (Harry),  treasurer  of 
Ford's  Theatre,  his  benefit,  102;  tells 
Booth  that  Lincoln  and  Grant  are  to  be 
present  on  night  of  Apr.  14,  152;  orna- 
menting "state  box,"  153,  171;  roomed  in 
building  adjoining  theater,  169;  has 
black-walnut  rocker  put  in  box,  171; 
Booth  jokes  with,  177;  sees  Booth  on 
stage  after  shot,  181;  sends  Buckingham 
for  Wallach,  183;  says  no  door  in  back 
wall  of  box,  209;  hammer  handed  to 
him  from  stage  to  box,  215,  (171);  on 
flags,  and  Booth's  spur  catching  in  one, 
217;  on  his  stay  in  Carroll  prison,  239; 
identifies  Booth's  body  at  Weaver's,  311 

Ford,  Mrs.  H.  Clay:  see  Chapman, 
Blanche 

Ford,  J.  R.,  business  manager  of 
Ford's  Theatre,  sees  Booth  Friday,  152; 
rooms  in  building  adjoining  theater, 
169;  borrows  Treasury  Guard's  colors, 
218;  health  affected  by  stay  in  Carroll 
prison,  239;  released,  295 

Ford,  John  T.,  as  to  Richard  Booth 
helping  fugitive  slaves,  78-9;  manager  in 
Richmond  and  Baltimore,  86;  on  Booth's 
acting  ability,  92;  calls  John  "fascinat- 
ing," 93;  on  John's  stage  leaps,  95,  215; 
about  John's  investments  in  oil  lands, 
103;  as  to  Booth's  heavy  spending,  125; 
Laura  Keene  supported  by  Ford  com- 
pany, 145;  as  to  boxes,  172;  on  Spangler's 
innocence,  207;  says  vestibule  door  only 
means  of  access  to  box,  209;  in  Rich- 
mond on  night  of  murder,  213;  denies 
story  of  bloodstained  playbill,  213;  in 
Carroll  prison,  239,  295-6;  in  Richmond 
hears  Edwin  Booth  was  the  murderer, 
287;  attempts  to  sell  or  re-open  Ford's, 
296;    ordered    to   close    it,    296;    threats 


against,  297;  rents,  and  then  sells,  to 
Federal  government,  298;  telegraphs  to 
Edwin  of  success  in  obtaining  John's 
body,  309;  identifies  body  at  Weaver's, 
310-1;  McCullough's  telegram  to,  374 

Ford's  Theatre,  Washington,  location 
of,  10;  Lincoln  at,  67,  68;  size  of,  69;  old 
building  burned,  98;  Booth  stars  in 
(Nov.  '63),  99;  a  haunt  of  Booth,  104; 
Booth  gets  his  mail  there,  104-5,  143"4» 
plan  to  seize  Lincoln  in,  115,  117;  Booth 
plays  in  McCullough  benefit  at,  125; 
why  Booth  may  have  chosen  it  for  the 
seizing  of  Lincoln,  140;  Laura  Keene  at 
(April  '65),  145;  "state  box"  engaged  for 
Lincoln  party,  149-50;  doorways  and  lay- 
out, 152,  170,  174;  Booth's  comings  and 
goings,  152  et  seq.;  equipment  of,  169 
et  seq.;  pandemonium  after  shooting, 
181-2;  soldiers  clear  it  and  threaten 
burning,  183,  196;  those  present  are  ex- 
amined, 186;  occupied  by  Veteran  Re- 
serve Corps,  196;  fear  it  will  be  burned, 
196,  202;  Myron  Parker  says  audience 
was  calm,  212;  Munroe  as  to  uproar,  212; 
inspected  by  Military  Commission,  217; 
stories  that  Booth  might  be  hiding  in, 
234,  239;  "Our  American  Cousin"  pre- 
sented behind  closed  doors,  238;  Ford 
tries  to  sell  and  to  re-open,  296;  ordered 
closed,  296;  retained  for  official  use,  297- 
8;  Edward  Bates  on  Stanton's  autocracy, 
297;  bought  by  Federal  government,  298; 
suggestion  that  it  be  made  into  a  library, 
298;  becomes  part  of  office  of  the 
Surgeon-General,  298 

Forney,  J.  W.,  denies  story  he  went 
with  Booth  to  ask  Lincoln  to  pardon 
Beall,  373 

Forrester,  Izola  (Mrs.  Mann  Page), 
"granddaughter"  of  Booth;  author  of 
"This  One  Mad  Act,"  365-6;  incon- 
sistencies between  book  and  Rita 
Booth's  statement — and  facts,  368  et  seq.; 
see  also  Henderson,  Mrs.  Al 

Fort  Jefferson,  Fla.,  four  conspirators 
sentenced  to,  295;  O'Laughlin  dies  there; 
other  three  pardoned  by  Johnson,  314 

Fort  Sumter,  Major  Anderson  sends 
word  it  cannot  hold  out,  55;  surrenders, 
56;  celebration  of  fall  of,  146 

Fourteenth  of  April,  1865  (Good  Fri- 
day), 149  et  seq.;  Lincoln's  busy  day,  157 
et  seq. 

Fox,  imaginary  accomplice  of  Booth, 
shot  at  Garrett's    (Mrs.  Christ),  330 

France,  unfounded  story  Booth  sent 
to,  by  Jefferson  Davis,  380 

Frey,  Jacob,  on  Baltimore  election 
riots,  41 


Garrett,  John    (Jack),  just  out  of  Con- 
federate    service,     256;     suspicious     of 


418 


"Boyd"  (Booth),  257;  agrees  to  take 
Booth  and  Herold  to  Guiney's  Station, 
257;  lets  fugitives  sleep  in  tobacco-barn, 
257;  with  brother  keeps  watch  in  corn- 
crib,  257;  sent  in  to  get  arms;  threatened 
by  Booth,  263;  prisoner  in  Washington, 
threatened  by  mob,  283 

Garrett,  J.  W,  of  B.  &  O.,  says  no  basis 
for  rumors  of  danger  to  President-Elect, 
20 

Garrett,  Richard  B.,  boy  of  11,  256; 
on  identification  of  body,  268-9;  letter  to 
Edwin  Booth,  269,  285 

Garrett,  R.  H.,  receives  Booth,  not 
knowing  who  he  is,  256;  roused  by 
Union  cavalry,  257;  says  fugitives  are  in 
woods,  262-3;  Conger  threatens  to  hang 
him,  263 

Garrett,  William,  just  out  of  Con- 
federate service,  255;  on  watch  in  corn- 
crib,  257;  prisoner  in  Washington, 
threatened  by  mob,  283 

Garrett's,  St.  Helen's  mistakes  about, 

343 

Gaston,  Frank,  editor  Granbury  News, 
on  St.  Helen,  345,  356 

Gayety  Theatre,  Albany,  Booth  at,  22, 

75 

George,  D.  E.,  after  death  of,  Moxley 
says  corpse  at  Green  Mount  was  not 
Booth,  312;  suicide  in  Enid;  Harper  tells 
undertaker  corpse  is  Booth,  338;  identi- 
fied by  Bates,  339;  story  he  left  letter  for 
Bates,  339;  embalmed  body  at  Penni- 
man's;  turned  over  to  Bates;  shown  at 
fairs;  offered  for  sale,  340;  see  mummy; 
known  facts  about  him,  346-7;  confession 
in  '00;  faked  confession  '03,  346-7;  was 
he  St.  Helen?  347-50;  was  he  Booth?  350- 
3;  money  matters,  wills,  349;  alleged 
interest  in  theater,  350;  physical  char- 
acteristics, 352-3;  handwriting,  353;  not 
Sewanee  Booth,  360;  may  have  put 
Booth  card  under  Blanche  DeBar's  door, 
372;  see  also  St.  Helen,  John 

Gifford,  J.  J.,  Ford's  Theatre  stage 
carpenter,  169;  meets  Booth  coming  out 
of  saloon,  175;  talks  to  Hess,  202-3 

Gilbert,  Mrs.  Anne  (Mrs.  J.  G.),  calls 
Booth  most  perfect  Romeo,  92;  on  his 
charm,  93,  94;  not. with  Miss  Rehan  in 
'94-  369;  thinks  Booth's  frame  of  mind 
like  Russian  nihilist's,  390 

Gilmor,  Col.  Harry,  leads  Confederate 
raids  in  Md.(  49;  Baltimore  ladies  buy 
saber  for,  109;  captured  by  Major 
Young,  113 

Gimlet,  found  in  Booth's  trunk,  206 

Gleason,  Captain  (later  Major),  on 
Weichmann  and  abduction  plot,  121;  on 
confusion  in  Washington,  195-6;  asks  for 
arrest  of  Weichmann  and  the  Surratts; 
not  allowed  to  go  to  Surrattsville,  199; 
confidence  in  Stanton,  199 


Glen  Rose,  Tex.,  St.  Helen  saloon- 
keeper in,  334,  346 

Gobright,  L.  A.,  Associated  Press 
correspondent,  on  companies  drilling  to 
seize  Federal  govt.,  15-6;  on  safeguards, 
Inaugural  Day  '61,  54;  sends  dispatch 
about  shooting  of  Lincoln,  184;  turns 
Deringer  over  to  Richards,  185 

Golden  Key,  Dry  Tortugas,  295 

Good  Hope  Hill,  Md.,  on  Booth's  ride, 
246 

Gordon,  A.  P.,  Hood  County,  St. 
Helen's  employer,  as  to  St.  Helen,  345, 
356 

Got,  Edmond,  French  actor,  in  diary 
for  '65  tells  of  visit  to  Paris  of  John 
Booth — who  could  not  have  been  there, 
379-8i 

Gourlay,  Jennie,  calls  Booth  a  cul- 
tured gentleman,  94;  plays  Mary  Mere- 
dith in  "Our  American  Cousin,"  173;  on 
stage  sees  Booth  in  dress  circle,  178; 
with  Withers  when  shot  is  fired,  180; 
says  Miss  Keene  went  to  "state  box," 
210;  about  performance  of  "Our  Ameri- 
can Cousin"  for  War  Dept.,  238 

Gourlay,  T.  C,  father  of  Jennie,  took 
Miss  Keene  to  state  box  (says  Jennie), 
209;  said  to  have  helped  carry  Lincoln 
to  Petersen's,  376 

Granbury,  Tex.,  home  of  Bates  in 
'72,  334;  St.  Helen  moves  there  from 
Glen  Rose,  335;  Granbury  opinions  of 
St.  Helen,  345-6 

Grant,  Gen.  U.  S.,  invites  Lincoln  to 
City  Point,  132;  arrives  in  Washington, 
April  13,  146-7;  displays  in  honor  of, 
147;  advertised  to  be  at  Ford's,  150; 
Booth  sees  him  leaving  Washington,  155- 
6;  his  remark  about  Lincoln's  dream, 
158;  why  he  did  not  go  to  Ford's,  159- 
61;  leaves  for  Philadelphia,  161;  Booth 
knew  he  was  not  at  Ford's,  207;  tells  of 
anonymous  letter,  245;  St.  Helen  says 
Johnson  guaranteed  Grant  would  not  be 
in  box,  342 

Grant,  Mrs.  U.  S.,  arrives  in  Washing- 
ton, April  13,  146-7;  stared  at  by  wild- 
looking  man,  152;  identifies  him  as 
Booth,  155;  insulted  by  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
determines  not  to  go  to  Ford's,  159-62; 
St.  Helen  makes  Johnson  responsible  for 
her  not  going,  342 

Gray,  Mark,  shoots  at  Edwin  in  '79, 
no  connection  with  John,  369 

Greeley,  Horace,  twice  attacked  by 
Rust,  52-3;  on  secessionist  feeling  in 
N.  Y.,  110-1 

Greenawalt,  John,  on  Booth  photo- 
graphs, 286 

Greenhow,  Mrs.  Rose,  on  "Scotch  cap 
and  cloak,"  32 

Green  Mount  Cemetery  (Baltimore), 
suicide      (possible     accomplice)     buried 


419 


here,  245-6;  Booth's  body  put  in  Weav- 
er's vault,  313-4;  reburial  there  of  J.  B. 
Booth  (the  elder)  and  Richard  Booth, 
314;  committal  service  and  burial  of 
John  Booth,  314-5;  other  Booths  buried 
there,  316;  myth  of  false  burial,  312-3, 
317;  of  secret  burial,  320 

Greensburg,  Pa.,  man  resembling 
Booth  seen  there,  228 

Green  Valley,  Calif.,  riotous  joy  over 
death  of  Lincoln,  383 

Greenwich  township,  Conn.,  no  rec- 
ords of  Booth  marriage,  370 

"Greenwood,  Grace,"  see  Lippincott, 
Mrs.  Sara 

Griffiths,  Jabez,  Pennsylvania  artillery- 
man, may  have  helped  carry  Lincoln  to 
Petersen's,  376 

Grover,  Leonard,  proprietor  of  Gro- 
ver's  Theatre,  67,  147 

Grover's  (National)  Theatre  (Wash 
ington),  location  of,  10;  Lincoln  at,  67 
8;  size  of,  69;  Booth's  first  appearance  at 
97;  Lincoln  said  to  have  been  present 
97;  Booth  plays  in  Avonia  Jones'  bene 
fit  at,  102;  Booth  asks  about  invitation 
of  Lincoln  to,  146;  Booth  engages  a  box 
in,  147-8;  Booth  seen  there  on  morning 
of  Apr.  14,  149;  Lincolns  decline  invi- 
tation to,  149;  Tad  there  on  night  of 
Apr.  14,  224 

Gurley,  Dr.  Phineas,  the  Lincolns 
walk  to  his  church,  140;  prays  at  death- 
bed,  189 

Gurowski,  Adam,  hates  Lincoln,  dis- 
trusted by  Lincoln,  73-4 

Hackett,  James  H.,  Lincoln  admires  his 
Falstaff,  66-7,  68;  Lincoln  tells  him 
"nothing  equals  'Macbeth',"  67,  134 

Hair,  Booth's,  wavy,  jet-black,  parted 
at  back,  92;  curl  given  Miss  Holloway, 
266;  body  at  Garrett's  identified  by,  269; 
R.  B.  Garrett's  letter  to  Edwin  about, 
269;  Peddicord  on  Montauk  snips  a  lock, 
274;  dirtied  and  unkempt  on  corpse, 
279;  curl  on  forehead  cut  at  Mudd's, 
279;  lock  clipped  by  lady  taken  away, 
281;  "fine  suit  of,"  at  Harvey  &  Marr's, 
308;  noted  at  Weaver's,  311,  313;  Moxley 
in  1903  says  red;  possible  explanation, 
313;  locks  cut  at  Weaver's,  311;  lock  cut 
by  Blanche  Chapman,  311;  Pegram,  at 
Weaver's,  notes  coal-black  and  heavy 
growth,  313;  George's,  dyed,  346;  faded, 
combed  after  death  to  resemble  tintype, 
351;  St.  Helen's  not  like  Booth's,  356; 
Sewanee  Booth's  dark,  wavy,  358;  Rita's 
said  to  be  like  John's,  365 

Hale,  Senator  J.  P.,  lives  at  the  Na- 
tional Hotel,  105;  his  friends  deny  his 
daughter's  engagement  to  Booth,  243; 
story  he  went  with  Booth  to  ask  Lincoln 
to  pardon  Beall,  373 


Hale,  The  Misses,  Booth's  friendship 
with,  105-6;  his  valentine  for  one  of, 
113-4;  m  DOX  at  Ford's  with,  125-6; 
Booth  engaged  to  one  of,  126,  243;  en- 
gagement denied  by  Senator's  friends, 
243;  Edwin  Booth  on  letter  from  one, 
243;  probably  Lucy,  not  Elizabeth,  243-4 

Hall,  Dr.,  Washington  surgeon  at 
Petersen's,  378 

Hall,  Maj.  Thomas  W.,  of  Baltimore 
Sun,  at  Weaver's  sees  body  of  Booth,  311 

Halpine,  Col.  Charles  ("Miles 
O'Reilly")  on  Lincoln's  too  great  access- 
ibility, 61-2 

Hamilton,  Gen.  Schuyler,  on  Lincoln's 
early  morning  strolls,  64 

"Hamlet,"  Lincoln's  delight  in,  66; 
John  Booth  in  role  of,  88,  93,  97,  98;  he 
says  Edwin  "the  only  real,"  93;  Edwin's 
100-night  run  in,  101;  Armstrong  lec- 
tures on,  327 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  Lincoln's  jest 
about,  48,  59,  61 

Hands,  Booth's,  large,  92;  not  de- 
formed, 352;  George's,  dislocated  thumb 
— right,  352;  left,  357;  J.  W.  Booth's 
(Sewanee),   dainty,   358 

Handwriting,  Booth's  and  George's, 
353;  Booth's,  in  Wilson's  book,  not  a 
facsimile,  353  n 

Handy,  Judge,  on  plans  to  keep  Lin- 
coln from  office,  17-8 

Hanscom,  S.  P.,  about  National  Volun- 
teers in  Washington,  17;  in  theater  gives 
Forbes  dispatch,  178-9,  221;  says  no 
guard  at  vestibule  door,  221;  saw  Forbes 
in  dress  circle,  223 

Harbin,  Thomas,  guides  Booth  to 
Bryant's,  253 

Harper,  Mrs.  E.  C.  (Ida),  to  her 
George  confesses  he  is  Booth,  338,  346, 
353;  calls  George's  eyes  deep  blue,  349 

Harper's  Magazine,  says  Booth  en- 
tered box  telling  sentry  President 
wanted  to  see  him,  222;  sends  Shepherd 
to  investigate  Bates,  333;  prints  his  re- 
port, Nov.  '24  issue,  333-4 

Harris,  (Miss)  Clara,  daughter  of  Sen- 
ator, invited  to  Ford's  and  accepts,  164; 
leaves  theatre,  183;  at  Petersen  house 
with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  188;  time  at  which 
she  left  home,  213;  slain  by  Rathbone, 
227 

Harris,  Senator  Ira  T.,  Lincolns  drive 
to  his  home  on  way  to  Ford's,  165;  for 
Miss  Harris  and  Major  Rathbone,  172 

Harrison,  William  Henry,  rumor  of 
poisoning  of,  57 

Havana,  Mrs.  Christ's  story  of  taking 
Booth  to  Nassau  from,  329-30 

Harvey,  R.  F.,  undertaker,  goes  with 
Weaver  to  Arsenal,  308 

Harvey  and  Marr,  Washington  under- 
takers on  alley  near  Ford's  Theatre,  help 


420 


Weaver  in  transfer  of  Booth's  body, 
307-8 

Hawk,  Harry,  plays  with  Laura  Keene, 
145;  as  Asa  Trenchard,  166;  hears  shot, 
sees  man  with  knife,  181;  "not  positive" 
man  was  Booth,  188;  in  preliminary  po- 
lice examination,  192 

Hay,  John,  assistant  to  Nicolay,  21,  64, 
70;  on  White  House  odors,  5;  on  Wash- 
ington in  '61,  7;  friends  guess  he  wrote 
'61  inaugural,  55;  on  rumored  Va.  plot, 
56-7;  on  safeguarding  Lincoln,  60;  with 
Lincoln  at  theaters,  67;  Lincoln  reads 
Shakespeare  to,  72;  on  Gurowski,  73; 
calls  "Marble  Heart"  with  Booth  tame, 
99;  on  Mills  mask  of  Lincoln,  127;  on 
Lincoln's  attitude  to  Baltimore  seces- 
sionists, 128;  on  Lamon's  fears  for  Lin- 
coln's safety,  137;  on  Lincoln's  weight, 
140  n;  calls  Mrs.  Lincoln  "Hell-cattical," 
165;  on  Stanton's  tribute  to  Lincoln,  189; 
not  at  theater;  on  time  of  shot,  214;  gos- 
siping with  Robert  Lincoln,  220;  Bates 
writes  him  in  '00  Booth  is  alive,  337 

Haynie,  Gen.  I.  N.,  visits  Lincoln 
Good  Friday  afternoon,  162;  invited  to 
Ford's,  163 

Healy,  G.  P.  A.,  experience  in  Charles- 
ton in  '61,  46;  Lincoln  tells  him  about 
guards,  72 

Henderson,  Mrs.  Al  ("Rita  Booth"), 
claims  to  be  daughter  of  John;  career; 
looks,  364-5;  mother  of  Izola  Forrester, 
366;  born  in  Richmond,  364;  or  Shenan- 
doah Valley,  366,  368 

Hennessey,  Okla.,  George  in,  347 

Hensley,  T.  F.,  of  El  Reno  Democrat, 
characterizes  George,  350;  gets  letters 
from  L.  I.  Booth  and  McCager  Payne, 

357 

Herndon  House,  Washington,  near 
Ford's  Theatre,  166;  Paine  living  at,  139; 
Booth,  Paine  and  others  meet  there,  166 

Herold,  D.  E.,  in  abduction  plot,  118; 
at  McCullough  benefit,  125;  where- 
abouts in  Apr.  '65,  138-9;  with  Booth  at 
Deery's,  147;  looks  for  Booth  next  morn- 
ing, 148;  probably  at  Herndon  House, 
166;  rumor  he  held  Booth's  horse,  201; 
his  name  at  end  of  Booth's  letter,  202; 
his  story  of  how  Booth  entered  box,  222; 
hires  roan  at  Nailor's,  does  not  return, 
232-3;  Fletcher  gives  Augur  description 
of,  234;  crosses  Navy  Yard  bridge  as 
"Smith,"  246;  goes  with  Booth  to  Sur- 
rattsville,  246;  and  to  Dr.  Mudd's  (as 
Huston),  248;  lost  near  Zekiah  Swamp, 
250;  calls  Booth  and  himself  Boyd,  255; 
tells  who  Booth  is,  255;  joins  Booth  at 
Garrett's,  256;  his  photograph  recognized 
by  Rollins,  261;  surrenders,  bound  to 
tree,  264;  reward  paid  for  his  capture, 
284;  sentenced  to  death,  hanged,  295; 
body    removed    to    arsenal    warehouse, 


305;  body  turned  over  to  friends,  308; 
buried  with  Episcopal  service,  317; 
named  by  Sinclair  in  delirium,  328 

Hess,  C.  D.,  invites  Lincoln  to  Grover's 
Theatre,  146;  his  sister-in-law  sees 
Booth,  149 

Hicks,  T.  H.,  governor  of  Md.,  14;  on 
anti-Lincoln  organizations,  17;  Lamon 
accuses,  39 

Hillard,  Capt.  E.  W.,  tells  of  burying 
Booth  in  Potomac,  318-9 

Holliday  Street  Theatre,  Baltimore,  J. 
T.  Ford  managing,  86;  Booth  plays  Rich- 
ard at,  88;  actors  rehearsing  there  go  to 
Weaver's  to  identify  Booth's  body,  310 

Holloway,  Miss,  sister  of  Mrs.  Garrett, 
256;  her  care  for  the  dying  Booth;  gets 
a  curl  of  his  hair,  266 

Holt,  Joseph,  Secretary  of  War,  re- 
ports on  plots  to  seize  Washington  (Feb. 
'61),  18;  Judge  Advocate  General,  assem- 
bles military  coroner's  jury  on  Booth, 
275  et  seq.;  Sanders  calls  him  Titus 
Oates,  386 

Hood  County,  Tex.,  St.  Helen  in,  334, 
344;  Ewell's  "History"  of,  has  anecdote 
of  St.  Helen,  344;  visited  by  F.  L.  Black 
on  trail  of  St.  Helen,  345 

Howard,  Joseph,  Jr.,  dispatch  to  N.  Y. 
Times  on  Lincoln's  leaving  Harrisburg, 
31-3;  "fakes"  Lincoln  proclamation,  33 

Howard,  W.  A.,  of  Detroit,  invited  to 
Ford's,  163 

Howe,  Julia  Ward,  on  John  Booth's 
talent,  100;  her  poem  "Pardon,"  393 

Howell,  Augustus,  on  Weichmann's 
spying,  237-8;  taught  Weichmann  Con- 
federate cipher,  245 

Hudspeth,  Mrs.  Mary,  story  of  scar 
on  Booth's  cheek,  278 

Hughes,  Daniel,  thinks  Booth  was  in 
his  saloon  in  Brooklyn,  228 

Hunter,  Maj.  (later  Gen.)  David,  with 
Lincoln  on  trip  to  Washington,  21; 
bodyguard  to  Lincoln,  61;  member  of 
Military  Commission,  375 

Huston,  name  given  by  Herold  at  Dr. 
Mudd's,  248 

Hutton,  L.,  poster  portrait  of  Booth 
in  collection  of,  284-5;  letter  from  Edwin 
to,  in  collection  of,  363-4 

Ide:  see  John  S.  Ide 

Identification  of  Booth  at  Garrett's, 
268-9;  on  board  Montauk,  274,  275-81; 
many  identifiers,  281;  Stanton  on,  283; 
captors  never  doubted  it,  284;  at  Harvey 
and  Marr's,  308-9;  at  Weaver's,  Balti- 
more, 310-3;  despite  four  identifications, 
story  of  fraudulent  burial  persists,  318- 
20;  Bates'  mark  of  identification,  352-3; 
clinical  study  of  George  mummy,  356-7; 
"widow"  says  family  made,  363;  see  boot, 
hair,    initials,    photographs,   scar,    teeth, 


421 


tintype,  vest;  also  bill  of  exchange,  mem- 
orandum book,  scarf  pin 

lies,  George,  about  Booth  in  Montreal, 
112 

Illinois  State  Register  (Springfield), 
calls  Lincoln's  policies  miserable,  imbe- 
cile, 391 

Inauguration,  plots  to  prevent  Lin- 
coln's, 15-6;  precautions,  53-4;  Lincoln's 
address,  54;  abduction  plot  for  second 
inauguration  day  ('65),  121;  Johnson's, 
196-7 

Independence  Hall,  Phila.,  Lincoln  at, 
25>  27 

Ingraham,  Col.  Prentiss,  all  material 
found  in  Booth's  room  turned  over  to, 
192;  sends  sleuths  to  Lower  Maryland; 
author  of  many  dime  novels,  200 

Initials  /.  W.  B.,  Booth  shows  to  Cox, 
250;  and  to  Jones,  251;  body  at  Garrett's 
identified  by,  269;  body  on  Montauk 
identified  by,  214-5;  referred  to  by  Asia, 
274;  both  Penniman  and  Ryan  say  no 
such  marks  on  George,  352 

Intelligencer  (Washington):  see  Na- 
tional Intelligencer 

Iredell,  Tex.,  St.  Helen  teaches  school 
there,  344 

Irving,  Henrietta,  cuts  Booth's  face 
and  stabs  self,  88 

Jackson,  Andrew,  attempted  assassina- 
tion of    ('35),  74 

James,  Rev.  Fleming,  resigns  from  St. 
Luke's  Hospital,  N.  Y.,  after  criticism  for 
officiating  at  burial  of  Booth  in  Green 
Mount,  316-7;  "card"  in  New  York 
Times,  316-7;  later  history,  317 

Jeffers,  Gen.  W.  L.,  orders  examina- 
tion of  all  going  to  Canada,  198 

Jefferson,  Joseph,  in  "Our  American 
Cousin,"  24,  150;  story  he  identified 
George  as  Booth,  339;  letter  about  tin- 
type 35 1  -2 

"Jenny  Lind,"  farce,  Booth  appears  in, 

85 

Jett,  W.  S.,  takes  Booth  to  Garrett's, 
254-5;  does  not  tell  who  "Boyd"  is,  256; 
is  arrested  at  Bowling  Green  and  taken 
to  Garrett's,  261-2;  Booth's  question  re- 
garding, 268;  in  the  St.  Helen  (Bates) 
version,  343 

Jewelers'  Association  of  America,  story 
of  its  resolution  to  set  all  dummy  ad- 
vertising clocks  at  8:221/2,  213 

John  S.  Ide,  steamer,  carries  Conger's 
men  to  Belle  Plain,  Va.,  261;  takes 
Booth's  body  with  Baker  up  the  river, 
273;  carries  Garretts  to  Washington,  283 

Johns,  Mrs.  J.  M.,  hears  threats  that 
Lincoln  will  never  be  President,  16 

Johnson,  Andrew,  living  at  Kirkwood 
House,  8,  156,  196;  myth  that  Booth  was 
agent    of,    76,    385-6;    Booth's    card    for 


Johnson's  secretary,  156,  386;  expected  to 
be  more  severe  than  Lincoln,  195,  384; 
guarded  at  hotel,  196;  sworn  in,  and  at 
first  Cabinet  meeting,  196-7;  older  than 
Lincoln,  197;  story  he  was  drunk  on  Apr. 
15  contradicted  by  all  evidence,  204-5; 
at  Petersen  house,  205;  about  Mrs.  Sur- 
ratt's  boarding-house,  247;  Booth  calls 
him  a  drunken  sot,  256;  dismisses  Stan- 
ton, 304;  Edwin  Booth  asks  him  for 
John's  body,  306;  orders  Schofield  to  de- 
liver body,  307;  pardons  Mudd,  Arnold, 
Spangler,  314;  St.  Helen  says  murder 
suggested  by,  342;  "widow"  calls  him 
leader  of  conspiracy,  363;  radicals  think 
his  succession  a  godsend,  383;  Tucker 
accuses,  385-6;  offers  reward  for  arrest  of 
Confederate  leaders,  385-6;  see  also  At- 
zerodt,  G.  A. 

Johnson,  Waldo,  possibly  knew  of 
Baltimore  plot,  30 

Johnson's  Island,  off  Sandusky,  O.,  at- 
tempt to  free  Confederate  prisoners  at, 
123.  372 

Jones,  Avonia,  Booth  in  "Adrienne  the 
Actress"  with,  85;  Booth  plays  Romeo  to 
her  Juliet  at  her  benefit,  102,  322  n 

Jones,  R.  R.,  clerk  at  Kirkwood  House, 
gives  Browning  card  from  Booth,  156; 
testifies  it  was  for  Browning  (not  John- 
son), 386 

Jones,  T.  A.,  Confederate  mail  agent 
in  Lower  Maryland,  108;  on  plot  to  ab- 
duct Lincoln,  117;  foster  brother  of  Cox, 
helps  him  to  hide  and  move  Booth  and 
Herold,  250-1;  on  Booth's  suffering,  250, 
278;  answer  to  Williams'  offer  of  money, 
251;  hears  cavalry  is  trailing  Booth, 
warns  him,  puts  him  in  skiff,  251-2; 
Booth  pays  $17  for  boat,  252 

Judd,  N.  B.,  with  Lincoln  on  trip  to 
Washington,  21;  receives  letters  from 
Pinkerton,  21,  22;  on  change  of  schedule 
to  Washington,  24,  27 

"Julius  Ccesar,"  John's  fondness  for, 
75,  84,  124;  gala  performance  in  New 
York,  101,  110;  Mrs.  Christ's  mistakes 
about,  330-1;  supposed  Booth  discusses 
it  with  Got,  379,  381 

Kane,  G.  P.  (Marshal),  Baltimore,  31, 
42,  43,  44-5,  75 

Keckley,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  Negro  mo- 
diste, says  Mrs.  Lincoln  believed  Parker 
guilty,  224 

Keene,  Laura,  actress  and  manager, 
24;  appears  with  Edwin  Booth  in  Aus- 
tralia in  1854,  80;  at  Ford's  (Washing- 
ton) in  Apr.  '65,  145;  farewell  and  bene- 
fit (Apr.  14),  150;  playing  Florence 
Trenchard,  167;  recognizes  Booth,  190; 
conflicting  accounts  about  her  presence 
in  "state  box,"  etc.,  209-10;  Owen  about 
Booth  and  "Mrs."  Keene,  211 


422 


Kennedy,  J.  A.,  sends  New  York  detec- 
tives to  Washington  and  Baltimore,  '60- 
'61,  36-8;  distrusts  Kane  of  Baltimore,  45 

Kenzie,  W.  D.,  of  Beloit,  Wis.,  says 
Booth  not  killed  at  Garrett's,  331-2 

Kimmel  House,  Washington,  smug- 
gling headquarters,  8-9 

King,  Dr.  A.  F.  A.,  in  Lincoln  box 
after  shot,  378 

King,  Rufus,  U.  S.  Minister  at  Rome, 
gets  word  that  Surratt  is  in  Italy,  299 

King  George  County,  Va.,  Booth  lands 
in,  253;  Conger's  detail  there,  261 

Kirkwood  House,  Washington,  home 
of  Andrew  Johnson,  8,  156,  204-5,  342; 
Booth  leaves  card  there,  156;  under  spe- 
cial guard,  196;  Atzerodt  registers  at,  but 
runs  away,  236-7;  rendezvous  of  con- 
spirators with  Johnson,  says  St.  Helen, 
342 

Knife  brandished  by  assassin,  181;  why 
Booth  carried  it,  207;  wounds  Rathbone, 
183,  207;  slashes  at  Withers,  strikes  Bur- 
roughs with  butt,  209;  Capt.  Owen  says 
Booth  thrust  dagger  at  "Mrs."  Keene, 
211;  he  struck  behind  him  with  knife, 
216 

Knights  of  Golden  Circle,  grotesque 
features  of,  46;  myth  Booth  was  agent 
of,  76;  story  that  an  unknown  knight 
died  in  Booth's  place  at  Garrett's,  367 

Know-Nothings,  strength  and  violence 
in  Baltimore,  41,  46,  109;  Booth  at  their 
meetings,  82-3;  Lincoln's  feeling  about, 
83  n 

Knox,  James  S.,  rushes  to  stage  when 
Lincoln  is  shot,  182,  192 

Ku  Klux  Klansman  with  story  of 
Booth,  355 

Kunkel,  George,  managing  Richmond 
Theatre  where  Booth  played  f58-'6o), 
84,  87  n;  in  Baltimore  ('65),  144 

LaCrosse,  Wis.,  Pomeroy's  Democrat  of, 
calls  Lincoln  a  traitor  and  preaches 
assassination,  391 

"Lady  of  Lyons,  The,"  Booth  billed 
in,  at  Grover's,  97 

Lamb,  Mrs.  Martha  J.,  on  N.  Y.  Draft 
Riots,  111 

Lamon,  Ward  H.,  with  Lincoln  on 
journey  to  Washington,  21;  Lincoln's 
only  escort  from  Harrisburg,  28;  on  the 
Baltimore  conspiracy,  38-9,  48;  strongly 
armed,  39,  137;  on  the  trip  to  Washing- 
ton, 48;  tries  to  discourage  Lincoln's 
theater-going,  69;  "monomaniac"  on 
Lincoln's  safety,  the  President  says,  70; 
about  Gurowski,  73-4;  about  scuffle  in 
Capitol  on  Mar.  4,  1865,  122  n;  fears  for 
Lincoln's  safety,  136-8;  reports  Grant  on 
anonymous  letter,  245 

Laura  Keene's  Theatre,  New  York, 
younger  Lincolns  at   (Feb.  '61),  24 


Lawrence,  Samuel,  tried  to  shoot  Pres- 
ident Jackson    ('35),  74 

Leadville,  Colo.,  Bates  traces  St.  Helen 
to>  337«  wrong  in  references  to,  346  n; 
undertaker  there  on  Bates  tintype,  357 

Leale,  Dr.  C.  A.,  in  "state  box"  after 
Lincoln  was  shot,  says  Miss  Keene  was 
there,  210;  on  disturbance  at  vestibule 
door,  222;  saw  Forbes  in  dress  circle,  223; 
first  doctor  to  reach  box,  378;  his  ad- 
dress; says  he  prolonged  Lincoln's  life, 
378 

Leap,  Booth's  acrobatics  in  "Mac- 
beth," 95,  215-6;  the  jump  or  vault  from 
"state  box,"  181,  216-7 

Leavitt,  M.  B.,  thought  to  resemble 
Booth,  nearly  mobbed  at  Eastport,  Me., 
229 

Lee,  Gen.  R.  E.,  story  he  is  in  Wash- 
ington on  Apr.  14,  152 

Leg,  Booth's,  swollen  and  painful,  246, 
255;  broken  by  horse  falling,  the  fugi- 
tives tell  Mudd,  243,  and  Bryant,  253; 
Mudd  describes,  249;  Dr.  Zadek's  opin- 
ion of  the  fracture,  249;  left  leg,  not 
right;  tibia,  not  fibula,  249,  279;  Dr. 
Stewart  did  not  believe  it  broken,  253; 
examined  on  Montauk  and  at  Weaver's, 
274,  311;  May  speaks  of  right  leg,  279-80; 
Mrs.  Christ  about  the  mythical  Fox,  330; 
St.  Helen's  account,  343;  Bates  says 
George  had  indented  right  leg;  Ryan 
says  no,  352-3;  clinical  study  of  mummy 
shows  broken  fibula,  356-7;  scars  on  J. 
W.  Booth  of  Sewanee,  358 

Letters,  threatening  and  warning,  re- 
ceived by  Lincoln,  55,  57-9,  70-1 

Lightfoot,  William,  recognized  Booth's 
body  at  Garrett's,  268 

Ligon,  Gov.  T.  W.,  of  Md.,  on  secret 
societies,  40-1 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  election  and  jour- 
ney to  Washington,  13-47;  minority  and 
sectional  choice,  13;  threatened  before 
inauguration,  13-4;  to  be  imprisoned  had 
Buchanan  been  abducted,  15;  Seward's 
letter  on  plots,  15;  what  New  Orleans 
said  about,  16;  letter  to  Seward  on  in- 
auguration, 16;  Edelin  offered  to  shoot, 
17;  Southern  violence  against,  planned, 
17-18;  farewell  to  Springfield,  19-20;  Al- 
bany Atlas  and  Argus  on,  22;  Cuyler  and 
Curtis  about,  23;  at  Academy  of  Music, 
New  York,  24;  changed  plan  of  his  jour- 
ney from  Harrisburg  to  Washington,  26- 
8;  goes  secretly  through  Baltimore,  29; 
discusses  plot  with  F.  Seward,  37-8;  re- 
grets method  of  his  entry  into  Washing- 
ton, 48;  inaugural  address  ('61),  54-5;  at 
inaugural  ball,  55;  how  he  was  guarded, 
55  et  seq.;  Hay  tells  him  of  Virginia 
plot,  56-7;  approachable,  impatient  of 
guards,  60-1;  careless  of  danger,  64-5; 
trips  to  War  Dept.  for  news,  65-6;  de- 


423 


light  in  drama  and  theater,  66-70;  "not  a 
Know-Nothing,"  83  n;  at  Booth's  first 
appearance  in  Washington,  97;  sees 
Booth  in  "Marble  Heart,"  99;  Booth's 
plot  to  abduct,  114  et  seq.;  does  not  at- 
tend play  at  Soldiers'  Home,  119;  too 
powerful  to  be  easily  kidnapped,  124-5; 
cares  of  office  and  weight  of  war,  127; 
squabbles  in  the  Cabinet  of,  128;  makes 
Chase  Chief  Justice,  129;  appreciation  of 
Stanton,  129;  on  Copperheads  and  critics, 
130-1;  physical  strain  on,  131;  renomina- 
tion  and  re-election,  131-2;  change  in 
attitude  toward  ('64-5),  132;  trip  to  City 
Point  and  Richmond,  132;  strong  right 
arm,  130,  140;  reads  "Macbeth";  serenity 
follows  melancholy,  133;  visits  Seward, 
134;  speech  on  news  of  Appomattox,  135; 
last  speech,  on  reconstruction  of  Louisi- 
ana, 136,  144;  won't  promise  Lamon  to 
stay  away  from  theater,  137;  his  guards 
in  '65,  139-40;  weight  and  strength,  140 
and  n;  Booth  on  Lincoln  as  king,  141; 
smiles  at  Bowman's  story  of  prowler, 
143;  Booth  calls  him  desecrator  of  Davis 
home,  146;  advertised  to  be  at  Ford's, 
150;  his  busy  day  on  Apr.  14,  157-8,  162; 
reads  Nasby  to  guests,  162;  tells  Brooks 
that  Mrs.  Lincoln  insists  on  going  to 
theater,  162;  remark  to  Crook,  162;  asks 
Stanton  to  let  Eckert  go  to  Ford's,  163; 
ride  to  theater,  165,  224;  in  box,  166, 
171,  186;  shot,  181-3;  tr*es  to  r*se>  ^2; 
carried  from  theater  to  Petersen  house, 
183,  186;  labored  breathing,  186;  Hawk 
identifies  as  man  he  saw  shot,  188;  dies 
at  7:22,  189;  form  of  Stanton's  tribute 
to,  189;  news  is  kept  from  armies,  190; 
grief  as  corpse  is  taken  to  Executive 
Mansion,  191-2;  had  ruled  no  passes 
needed  to  go  South,  194;  younger  than 
Johnson,  197;  rumor  he  might  recover, 
201;  those  at  deathbed,  205;  head  sup- 
ported by  Laura  Keene,  212;  bled  little; 
stories  of  bloodstains,  213;  playbills  with 
his  name  forgeries,  212-3;  time  of  en- 
tering theater,  213;  time  of  shot,  213-4; 
autopsy,  course  of  ball,  214-5;  protection 
at  Ford's,  219-25;  Booth's  letter  on  Lin- 
coln's nomination  and  policy,  240-3; 
Booth  planned  to  make  prisoner  of,  242; 
change  in  dead  face;  photographs  de- 
stroyed, 279;  hatred  of,  389-92 

Lincoln,  murder  of,  the  shot  is  fired, 
181;  news  kept  from  armies,  190;  not 
distinguished  by  authorities  from  ab- 
duction plot,  193;  story  connecting  John 
Y.  Beall  with  murder,  372-3,  389;  sorrow 
and  joy  over,  382  et  seq.;  attitude  of 
radical  leaders,  383;  Easter  sermons  re- 
garding it,  383;  few  regrets  in  South, 
383-4;  myths  of  interests  behind  Booth, 
385  et  seq.;  diffused  hatred  of  Lincoln 
strikes  at  him  by  means  of  Booth,  392 


Lincoln,  Mrs.  Abraham  (Mary  Todd), 
journey  to  Washington,  19,  21;  in  New 
York  (Feb.  '61),  24;  in  Baltimore,  43-4; 
Hay  allays  her  fears,  57;  rides  with  the 
President,  62;  at  theaters,  67;  interprets 
image  of  Lincoln  in  mirror,  134;  adver- 
tised to  be  at  Ford's,  150;  dislikes  Wash- 
ington, 157;  and  Mrs.  Grant,  159-61; 
and  Mrs.  Stanton,  161;  insists  on  going 
to  theater,  162;  dismisses  McManus,  165; 
costume  at  Ford's,  171-2;  laughs  just  be- 
fore the  shot,  181;  leaves  theater,  183;  at 
Petersen  house,  186;  Tanner  on  her 
agony,  188;  horror  at  viewing  Ford's  on 
morning  of  Apr.  15,  197;  "They  have 
shot  pa!"  (in  Owen's  story),  211;  believes 
Parker  guilty,  224;  Nicolay  and  Hay  on 
her  later  life,  227 

Lincoln,  Robert  Todd,  journey  to 
Washington,  21,  23-4,  43;  at  Laura 
Keene's  in  New  York,  24;  wants  Tad 
punished  for  dismissing  guard,  72;  too 
tired  to  go  to  Ford's,  164;  at  deathbed 
with  Sumner,  189;  gossiping  with  Hay, 
220 

Lincoln,  Thomas  ("Tad"),  on  trip  to 
Washington,  21,  23-4,  43;  at  Laura 
Keene's  in  N.  Y.,  24;  his  pony,  65;  goes 
to  theatre  with  father,  67;  dismisses  reg- 
ular guard,  72;  drives  with  father  and 
mother  on  Good  Friday,  157;  at  Grover's 
seeing  "Aladdin"  that  night,  224 

Lincoln,  Willie,  journey  to  Washing- 
ton, 21,  23-4,  43;  goes  to  Laura  Keene's 
in  N.  Y.,  24;  his  pony,  65 

Lincoln  Branch  Barracks,  bay  horse 
found  near,  234,  237 

Lloyd,  J.  M.,  leases  Surratt  house,  106; 
Surratt  leaves  carbines,  rope,  etc.,  with 
him,  118-9;  formerly  on  Washington  po- 
lice, 224;  untrustworthy  evidence  about 
Mrs.  Surratt,  247;  gives  carbine  and 
package  to  Herold,  247 

Lomas,  Marylander,  double  spy,  112-3 

"London  Assurance,"  Booth  plays  Cool 
in,  85 

Loring,  Lieut.  B.  W.,  U.  S.  N.,  says 
he  helped  carry  Lincoln   to   Petersen's, 

376 

Louisa  Court  House,  Va.,  Booth's  plan 
to  get  there,  257 

Louisiana,  Lincoln's  last  speech,  on 
reconstruction  in,  136;  Booth's  comment, 
144 

Louisville,  Ky.,  Booth  playing  in,  88 

Lower  Maryland:  see  Maryland, 
Lower 

Lowry,  J.  T.,  photographer,  at  Weav- 
er's, identifies  Booth's  body,  313 

Lucas,  William,  Stewart  sends  Booth 
and  Herold  to  his  cabin,  253-4;  he  takes 
them  to  Port  Conway,  254 

Lynching,  threat  to  Northerners  in 
Baltimore   (Apr.  '61),  46 


424 


"Macbeth,"  Lincoln's  admiration  for, 
66-7,  133-4;  Booth's  leap  in,  95,  215;  he 
plays,  in  Washington,  98 

Machadoc  Creek,  Va.,  Booth  heads  for, 
252,  253 

Malignment  of  Lincoln,   130-1,  382-3, 

38992 

Mallory,  S.  R.,  Confederate  Secretary 
of  Navy,  denies  reports  of  Davis'  com- 
ment on  Lincoln's  murder,  384 

"Marble  Heart,  The,"  John  Booth  in, 
90,  97,  98;  Lincoln  sees,  99 

Marietta,  O.,  Lincoln  effigy  burned  at 
celebration  over  his  death,  388 

"Mark  of  the  Scalpel,  The,"  paper  by 
Dr.  May  on  Booth's  scar,  277-8 

Marriage  of  Booth  at  Cos  Cob,  story 
in  "This  One  Mad  Act"  incredible,  368- 

Marshall  (Richmond)  Theatre,  Rich- 
mond, Va.,  Booth  there  in  "stock,"  84-6 

Martin,  P.  C,  his  letter  introducing 
Booth  to  Dr.  Queen,  104;  Booth  leaves 
wardrobe  with  him  in  Montreal,  111-2 

Maryland,  urged  (Dec.  i860)  to  join 
Virginia  in  seizing  the  Capitol,  14 

Maryland,  Lower,  Booth  looking  for 
farm  property  in,  104,  114;  Surratts  come 
to  Washington  from,  106;  contraband 
trade  in,  108;  "Union  frontier,"  109;  gen- 
eral knowledge  there  of  abduction  plot, 
117,  124;  route  planned  for  abduction, 
117-20;  search  for  Booth  in,  198-200,  246 

Mary  Provost's  Theatre,  New  York, 
John  Booth  stars  as  Richard  III  at,  88-9 

Mason,  J.  M.,  tells  British  Booth  was 
a  Northern  radical  and  killed  Lincoln  to 
give  radical  policies  free  play,  387 

Mattawoman  Swamp,  Booth  crosses, 
by  T.  B.  road,  247 

Matthews,  John,  actor  at  Ford's,  friend 
of  Booth,  106;  will  not  join  abduction 
plot,  115,  139;  Booth  enraged  at  him, 
H5»  139;  takes  trunk  to  Baltimore,  120; 
in  McCullough  benefit,  125;  Booth  gives 
him  sealed  paper  for  Intelligencer,  155; 
he  reads  and  burns  the  letter,  201-2; 
sensitive  to  any  mention  of  Booth,  202; 
lived  at  Petersen's  house,  378 

Maximilian,  story  that  Booth  was  in 
his  army,  355 

May,  Dr.  J.  F.,  Washington  surgeon, 
identifies  Booth's  body  by  scar,  276-7; 
explains  origin  of  scar,  277;  his  paper 
"The  Mark  of  the  Scalpel,"  277,  278; 
says  Booth  greatly  changed  after  death; 
contradicted  by  Munroe,  278,  279;  Stan- 
ton refers  to,  283 

McClellan,  G.  B.,  employs  Pinkerton, 
34.  35»  47 

McCollom,  J.  G.,  accidentally  wounds 
Booth,  93,  352 

McCoy,  J.  W.,  of  Baltimore,  at  Weav- 
er's with  J.  T.  Ford,  311 


McCulloch,  Hugh,  Secretary  of  Treas- 
ury, at  Lincoln  deathbed,  205 

McCullough,  Ben,  raises  500  adven- 
turers, perhaps  for  abduction,  55-6 

McCullough,  John,  friend  of  Booth, 
93,  106;  Booth  at  his  benefit,  101,  125; 
leaves  Washington,  143;  story  of  his  see- 
ing John  in  London,  371-2;  not  in  Wash- 
ington at  time  of  Alger's  story  about 
him,  373-4 

McGeer,  G.  G.,  of  Vancouver,  says 
banking  ring  hired  Booth  to  kill  Lin- 
coln, 385 

McGowan,  Capt.  Theodore,  sits  near 
state  box  and  sees  dark  man  give  Forbes 
a  card,  179,  221,  223,  286 

McLean,  Washington,  story  he  went 
with  Booth  to  ask  Lincoln  to  pardon 
Beall,  373 

McManus,  Edward,  doorkeeper  at  Ex- 
ecutive Mansion,  60;  dismissed  by  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  165 

McPhail,  J.  L.,  Provost  Marshal,  Ar- 
nold's confession  written  for,  11972.;  too 
late  to  arrest  Arnold,  193;  orders  search 
in  St.  Mary's  and  Calvert  Counties,  198 

McVicker,  J.  H.,  tries  to  get  John 
Booth  to  play  in  Chicago  (May  '65), 
103 

McVicker,  Mary  (Mrs.  Edwin  Booth), 
plays  Juliet  to  Edwin's  Romeo,  306;  Cos 
Cob  home  bought  for,  370 

Mears,  H.  W.,  in  Booths'  private  the- 
atricals, 80;  sees  body  at  Weaver's,  312; 
gives  clue  to  story  of  false  burial,  318 

Memorandum  book,  Booth's,  found  on 
body,  266;  aids  in  identifying,  268;  not 
in  evidence  at  Conspiracy  Trial,  300; 
L.  C.  Baker,  Holt,  and  Stanton  regard- 
ing pages  cut  out,  300-1;  Stanton's  let- 
ter to  Johnson,  301;  Holt's  description, 
301;  quoted  complete,  302-3;  comment 
on,  303-4 

Memphis,  Tenn.,  home  of  F.  L.  Bates, 
333;  Sewanee  Booth  lives  there,  359; 
story  of  Booth  chosen  by  conclave  there, 
388 

"Merchant  of  Venice,  The,"  Booth 
studies,  84;  Booth  plays,  Washington,  97 

Meredith,  Mary,  part  in  "Our  Ameri- 
can Cousin"  played  by  Jennie  Gourlay, 
!73>  174 

Merrill,  Dr.  W.  F.,  Washington  den- 
tist, identifies  Booth's  body  by  fillings, 
280 

Metropolitan  Police,  Washington,  de- 
tail from,  guards  Lincoln,  68-9;  Parker, 
new  guard  from,  162,  165,  220;  Board 
tries  Parker  and  dismisses  complaint, 
223;  records  of  trial  not  in  files,  223; 
head  of,  responsible  for  Parker's  ap- 
pointment, 225 

Mexico,  Pelew  Island  Booth  had  been 
in,  325;  St.  Helen  goes  from  San  Fran- 


425 


cisco  to,  344;  Bates  has  another  story  of 
St.  Helen  in,  355 

Micheau,  Dr.  T.,  acted  in  juvenile 
theatricals  with  Booth,  sees  his  body  at 
Weaver's,  312 

Military  Commission,  inspects  Ford's, 
217;  E.  V.  Murphy  on  its  reporting  staff, 
238;  its  unfairness;  myth  its  members 
died  prematurely,  375;  trial  of  conspira- 
tors by,  295 

Mills,  Izola  Martha,  grandmother  of 
Izola  Forrester  and  supposed  wife  of 
Booth,  366  el  seq.;  lives  with  Booth  in 
Shenandoah  Valley,  366;  with  Steven- 
son in  Baltimore;  marries  him;  on  stage; 
at  Canterbury,  Conn.,  366-7 

Mirror  (N.  Y.)  says  Blanche  DeBar 
not  related  to  Booth  family,  372 

Mississippi,  St.  Helen  rides  into,  343; 
story   from,   about   Booth's   wanderings, 

335 

Mitchell,  Maggie,  John  Booth  in  her 
support,  85;  Booth  possibly  engaged  to, 
126 

Mob  violence  in  American  cities,  40; 
threatens  prisoners  of  state,  283;  see 
Baltimore 

"Money,"  Bulwer's,  Booth  in,  go,  97, 
100 

Monitors,  at  Washington  after  '62,  9; 
Lincoln's  visit,  157;  see  Montauk,  Sau- 
gus 

Montauk  (monitor),  the  Lincolns 
visit,  157;  Dr.  Todd,  surgeon  of,  195, 
221-2;  conspirators  imprisoned  on,  273, 
283;  Booth's  body  put  aboard,  274;  body 
identified  there,  and  autopsy  held,  274-5; 
the  living  Booth  would  have  been  im- 
prisoned there,  281-3;  body  photo- 
graphed on  board  of,  285;  body  taken 
from,  287-8 

Montgomery,  Ala.,  Booth  at,  87;  Don- 
elson  says  he  knew  him  at,  325 

Montgomery,  Comm.  J.  B.,  orders  for 
guard  over  Booth,  282 

Montgomery,  Richard,  testimony  on 
abduction  plot  originating  in  Canada, 
122 

Montreal,  Booth  in  (winter  '64-5), 
111-2;  center  of  Confederate  activity, 
112;  N.  Y.  Clipper  correspondent  in, 
says  Booth  photographs  are  accurate, 
285;  Booth's  theatrical  wardrobe  shipped 
from,  for  South,  322;  Southern  agents 
there  think  Booth  a  Federal  agent,  388 

Morning  Chronicle  (Washington), 
says  Booth  the  assassin,  190;  on  portraits 
of  Booth  and  their  distribution,  285 

Morris,  Clara  (Mrs.  F.  C.  Harriott), 
about  John  Booth,  92,  94;  story  she  iden- 
tified George  as  Booth,  339,  352,  354; 
tells  of  gash  in  eyebrow,  352 

Mosby,  Col.  J.  S.,  Renfrew  (Booth?) 
had  been  with,  113;  Lewis  Paine  served 


with,  115,  117,  123;  and  was  nicknamed 
Mosby,  118;  denounces  murder,  will  sur- 
render assassin,  230;  Herold  says  he  and 
Booth  are  going  to  join  Mosby,  253; 
three  soldiers  of  Mosby  cross  Rappa- 
hannock with  Booth  and  Herold,  254-5; 
seven  of  Mosby's  men  killed  by  Corbett; 
Mosby  spares  him  for  Andersonville, 
270 

Moss,  Mrs.  M.  Helen  Palmes,  sees 
Booth  at  Grover's,  149 

Moxley,  Basil  ("Bas"),  doorkeeper  at 
Holliday  Street  Theatre,  312;  identifies 
body  at  Weaver's  ('69),  312;  makes  a 
"remarkable  disclosure"    (1903),  312-3 

Mudd,  Dr.  G.  D.,  cousin  of  Dr.  S.  A. 
Mudd,  340;  tells  Lieut.  David  Dana  of 
suspicious  visitors  at  S.  A.  Mudd's,  340  n 

Mudd,  Dr.  Samuel  A.,  Booth  meets 
him  (Nov.  '64),  104;  probably  not  active 
in  abduction  plot,  124;  examines  and 
dresses  Booth's  leg,  248-9;  says  he  did 
not  recognize  Booth,  248;  sentenced  to 
imprisonment  for  life,  and  sent  to  Fort 
Jefferson,  295;  pardoned  by  Johnson, 
314;  named  by  Sinclair  in  delirium,  328; 
St.  Helen  says  Mudd  made  cigar-box 
splint,  343;  at  mythical  Smythe's,  361 

"Mummy"  of  Booth,  on  view  at  Pen- 
niman's  in  Enid,  339-40;  turned  over 
to  Bates,  340;  rented  out  by  Bates,  340; 
offered  for  sale,  340;  clinical  study  of, 
356-7;   magazine  articles  about,  357  n 

Munroe,  Seaton,  sees  Miss  Keene  after 
murder,  211;  about  uproar  at  Ford's, 
212;  identifies  body  on  Montauk,  275-6; 
says  "countenance  was  unmarred,"  279; 
sees  Booth's  body  taken  from  Montauk, 

293 

Mustache,  John  Booth's  hid  resem- 
blance to  Edwin,  92,  187;  shaved  off  at 
Dr.  Mudd's,  248,  255,  279,  287;  Sewanee 
Booth's,  358 

Nagle,  J.  F.,  actor,  held  by  Chicago 
police,  228 

Nailor,  Thompson,  livery  stable  of, 
192;  Booth's  horses  put  up  there,  232; 
Herold  hires  bay  mare  and  does  not  re- 
turn, 2323,  251 

National  Detective  Bureau,  L.  C. 
Baker  head  of,  59,  236 

National  Hotel  (Washington),  gave 
name  to  a  disease,  8;  Baltimore  rowdies 
cause  disorder  near,  41;  Booth's  head- 
quarters, 102,  125;  the  Hales  live  in, 
105-6;  register  shows  Booth's  absences 
from  Washington,  106-7,  28°'  38°'  Pum" 
phrey's  stable  in  rear  of,  152;  contents 
of  trunk  in  Booth's  room,  192,  206; 
Dawson,  head  clerk  of,  identifies  Booth, 
275;  Alger's  story  of  Booth  and  Mc- 
Cullough  at,  373-4;  register  shows  trip 
to  France  impossible,  380 


National  Intelligencer  (Washington), 
comment  on  letter  by  Garrett  of  B.  &  O., 
20;  tells  why  Lincoln  hurried  through 
Baltimore,  31;  on  Lincoln's  inaugural, 
54;  on  Booth's  Richard,  98;  on  good  or- 
der second  inauguration,  122;  on  Grant's 
reception,  147;  Booth  gives  Matthews 
sealed  paper  for,  155;  says  Booth  cer- 
tainly the  murderer,  190;  about  no 
passes  needed  to  Alexandria,  194;  on 
conspiracy,  195;  on  horror  and  fear  in 
Washington,  196;  Booth's  message  never 
delivered  to,  201,  302;  on  Lincoln 
autopsy,  215;  says  Booth  shouted  thrice, 
219;  on  telegraphy  (Mar.  '65),  226;  on 
coat  worn  by  Seward's  assailant,  234-5; 
sure  Booth  still  in  Washington,  235;  on 
mourning  and  grief  in  city,  236;  on 
news  Booth  is  dead,  281;  as  to  who  car- 
ried Lincoln  to  Petersen's,  376 

National  Republican:  see  Daily  Na- 
tional Republican 

National  Volunteers,  anti-Lincoln  or- 
ganization (1861)  in  Washington,  17;  in 
Baltimore,  46 

Navy  Yard  (Washington),  monitors 
there,  157;  hundreds  crowd,  to  see 
Booth's  body,  281 

Navy  Yard  bridge  (Washington), 
wooden  structure  over  Eastern  Branch 
to  Uniontown,  9;  among  possible  exits, 
193;  Cobb  on  duty  at,  and  the  three 
horsemen,  231  et  seq.;  Booth  and  Herold 
cross,  246;  Bates'  story  of  how  St.  Helen 
and  Herold  were  arrested  there  and  re- 
leased, 341-2;  Demond's  statement  as  to 
Booth  there,  342-3 

Negro,  Booth's  attitude  to  the,  82-3 

Newman,  N.  C,  affidavit  that  Booth 
stayed  at  Newman's  in  Friendville,  Ky., 

355 

New  Orleans,  attitude  of,  toward 
Lincoln,  16;  Booth  plays  there  (Mar. 
'64);  has  bronchial  hoarseness,  99-100, 
389;  Kenzie  says  he  knew  Booth  there 
in  '62-3,  331;  but  Booth  was  not  there, 
332;   St.   Helen  comes   to   Iredell   from, 

344 

New  York  City,  riots  in,  40;  Booth 
plays  there  in  '62,  88-9;  three  Booths  in 
"Julius  Caesar,"  101,  389;  Edwin  plays 
Hamlet  for  one  hundred  nights,  101; 
Confederate  plot  to  burn,  102,  123;  John 
at  Edwin's  home  in,  110;  secessionist 
sympathy  in,  110-1,  390;  Booth  visits 
Chester  in,  114;  search  for  Booth  in,  230; 
Booth  expected  to  play  in,  on  Apr.  22, 

389 

Ney,  St.  Helen's  name  in  New  Orleans, 

344 

Nicolay,  J.  G.,  Lincoln's  secretary, 
journey  to  Washington,  21;  makes  in- 
quiries regarding  threats  to  Lincoln,  57; 
with  Lincoln  at  theaters,  67,  99 


Norfolk,  Va.,  suspects  arrested  at,  228 

Norman,  Mrs.  Art  (Laura  Ida  Booth), 
claims  George  estate  as  Booth's  daugh- 
ter, 357;  her  career,  359;  goes  to  Enid, 
360 

Norris,  Gen.  W.  W.,  commanding  Bal- 
timore district,  orders  to,  for  Booth's 
arrest,   194 

Nutt,  D.  L.,  on  St.  Helen,  345 


O'Beirne,  Maj.  J.  R.,  searching  Lower 
Maryland  for  Booth,  200;  details  guard 
for  Andrew  Johnson,  205 

Offutt,  Mrs.  Emma,  Lloyd's  sister-in- 
law,  Mrs.  Surratt  leaves  a  package  for, 
247 

Oglesby,  Gov.  Richard  James,  of  Illi- 
nois, visits  Lincoln  Good  Friday,  162; 
invited  to  Ford's,   163 

Oil,  Booth's  investments  in,  103,  110; 
oil  land  assigned  to  Junius,  240;  Okla- 
homa oil  lands  supposed  to  belong  to 
George,  willed  to  Sisters  of  Charity, 
360  n 

O'Laughlin,  Michael,  boyhood  friend 
of  Booth,  107;  Asia  asks  John  about 
him,  114;  in  abduction  plot,  115,  117, 
118,  119,  123;  returns  to  Baltimore,  119; 
on  one-day  trip  to  Washington,  138; 
Booth  intolerant  of,  139;  arrested  in 
Baltimore,  236,  246;  moved  from  Old 
Capitol  to  Montauk,  273;  sentenced  to 
imprisonment  for  life  and  sent  to  Fort 
Jefferson,  295;  dies  there  in  '67,  314 

Olcott,  Col.  H.  S.,  sends  detectives  to 
Lower  Maryland  in  search  for  Booth, 
200 

"Old  Capitol"  prison,  Washington, 
history  and  war-time  use,  5;  Mrs.  Green- 
how  in,  5,  32  n;  special  guard  at,  after 
murder,  187;  conspirators  removed  from, 
273,  283;  Garretts  taken  there,  283;  Wirz 
hanged  there,  305;  Hillard  says  Booth's 
body  taken  thence  to  be  sunk  in  Poto- 
mac, 318-9 

Old  Guard,  The,  of  N.  Y.,  May  '65 
issue,  out  in  Apr.,  quotes  poems  on  ty- 
rants and  their  death,  392 

Oldroyd,  O.  H.,  says  many  actors  iden- 
tified Booth's  body  on  Montauk,  281;  on 
mystic  number  7  in  Lincoln's  life,  375; 
on  Clark,  renter  of  room  at  Petersen's 
in  which  Lincoln  died,  378  n 

"Our  American  Cousin,"  produced  in 
New  York  in  1858  by  Laura  Keene,  24, 
150;  Washington  showings,  150;  Lincoln 
sees  Laura  Keene  in  ('64),  150;  at  Ford's 
Apr.  14,  150;  second  act,  dairy  scene, 
172-3;  enjoyed  by  Mrs.  Lincoln,  175-6; 
character  of  play;  Whitman's  criticism, 
176;  revived  in  1908  by  E.  H.  Sothern, 
176;  replayed  at  Ford's  by  order  of  the 
War  Dept.,  238 


427 


"Our  Brutus,"  song  glorifying  Booth, 

385 

Owen,  Capt.  Silas,  on  Mrs.  Lincoln 
and  "Mrs."  Keene  and  Booth  at  Ford's, 
211 


Page,  Mrs.  Mann:  see  Forrester,  Izola 

Paine,  Lewis  (alias  of  Lewis  T.  Pow- 
ell), in  abduction  plot  with  Booth,  1 15- 
7,  123;  D.  H.  Bates  tried  to  connect  him 
with  attempt  to  burn  New  York,  123; 
breaks  parole,  124  (115-6);  lives  at  the 
Herndon  House  at  Booth's  expense,  139; 
stalwart  physique,  140;  with  Booth  and 
others  at  the  Herndon  on  the  night  of 
Apr.  14,  166;  Booth  signs  Paine's  name 
to  letter  for  Intelligencer,  202;  arrested 
at  Mrs.  Surratt's,  237;  Seward's  assailant, 
237;  E.  V.  Murphy  thinks  even  civil 
court  would  have  convicted,  238;  Doster 
counsel  for,  244;  visited  Surratt  house, 
247;  transferred  from  Old  Capitol,  273 
and  n;  resents  hood,  273;  reward  paid 
for  capture  of,  284;  sentenced  to  death 
and  hanged,  295;  body  removed  to  ware- 
house, 305;  named  by  Sinclair  in  deli- 
rium, 328 

Paris,  Bigelow  in,  hears  of  plots,  59; 
imaginary  Booth  seen  there,  325;  Got's 
diary  on  entertaining  Booth  in,  379; 
evidence  against  his  being  there;  none 
that  he  was  there,  380 

Parker,  John  F.,  special  guard,  record 
of,  165,  220;  assigned  by  Supt.  Richards 
to  duty  at  Executive  Mansion,  220-1; 
guard  for  Lincoln  at  Ford's  on  Apr.  14, 
220-1;  leaves  chair  in  vestibule,  sits  in 
dress  circle,  221;  tried  for  neglect  of 
duty;  complaint  dismissed,  223;  Mrs. 
Lincoln  thought  him  guilty,  224;  but 
there  is  no  evidence  that  he  was  an 
accomplice,  224;  dismissed  from  force 
(1868),  224 

Parker,  Myron,  says  audience  at  Ford's 
was  calm,  212;  hears  Booth's  cry  of  Sic 
semper  tyrannis!,  220 

Parshall,  John,  in  '97  claims  to  have 
been  last  survivor  of  six  who  disposed 
of  Booth's  body,  318 

Payne,  McCager  W.,  half-brother  of 
Mrs.  Art  Norman  (L.  I.  Booth),  357; 
his  story  of  "John  W.  Booth"  of  Se- 
wanee,  Tenn.,  357-60;  expects  a  for- 
tune, 360 

Peace  Convention,  Washington  (Feb. 
'61),   18,  30 

Peddicord,  Sergt.  (later  Dr.)  J.  M. 
tells  how  Paine  resented  hood,  273;  iden- 
tifies Booth's  body  on  Montauk  by  pho- 
tograph and  initials,  274;  snips  a  lock 
of  Booth's  hair,  274 

Pegram,  Col.  W.  M.,  identifies  Booth's 
body  at  Weaver's,  313 


Pelew  Islands,  C.  J.  Donelson's  story 
of  meeting  Booth  there,  325-6 

Pendel,  Thomas,  special  guard  for 
Lincoln,  69;  his  account  of  Lincoln  and 
the  stranger  in  gray,  70-1;  takes  post  of 
doorkeeper  at  Executive  Mansion,  165; 
John  F.  Parker  succeeds  him  as  special 
guard,  165 

Penitentiary  on  the  grounds  of  the 
Washington  Arsenal,  Booth  buried  with- 
in it,  292-5;  Mrs.  Surratt,  Atzerodt,  Her- 
old,  and  Paine  hanged  in  the  yard  of, 
295;  Military  Commission  meets  there, 
295;  bodies  of  Booth  and  others  re- 
moved to  warehouse,  305-6 

Pen-Mar,  Pa.,  Moxley  says  Booth  seen 
near,  312 

Penniman,  W.  B.,  George's  body  in 
Penniman's  undertaking  establishment 
at  Enid,  338;  contradicts  F.  L.  Bates, 
339;  takes  out  letters  of  administration 
on  George's  "estate,"  339;  ridicules 
Bates'  "proof,"  350;  on  effort  to  make 
body  of  George  look  like  tintype  of  St. 
Helen,  351;  says  no  marks  resembling 
initials  on  George's  wrist,  352 

Pennsylvania  Avenue,  Washington,  in 
Civil-War  days,  3,  6,  7,  8,  10 

Pescara,  Booth  accidentally  wounded 
while  appearing  as,  88;  praised  in  role, 
89,  90;  Booth  in  the  role  at  the  McCul- 
lough  benefit    (Mar.  18,  '65),  102,  125 

Petersburg,  Va.,  Lincoln  there  after  its 
capture  by  the  Federals,  132;  no  pass 
necessary  for  visit  to  (Apr.  '65),  194; 
story  that  Booth  had  been  wounded  at, 
255>  256 

Petersen,  William,  house  of,  the 
wounded  Lincoln  taken  there,  183,  186; 
Matthews  lives  there,  201-2;  Andrew 
Johnson  present  there  during  the  night 
of  Apr.  14,  205;  others  present,  205; 
time  of  Dr.  Stone's  arrival,  214;  how  and 
by  whom  was  Lincoln  carried  to?  376; 
room  in  which  Lincoln  dies,  377-8 

Petruchio,  John  Booth  plays,  90 

Philadelphia,  Pa.,  Lincoln  in  (Feb. 
'61),  25-6;  John  Booth's  appearances  in, 
84,  91;  at  home  of  Asia  Clarke  in,  104, 
111;  trade  from,  to  South,  111;  hatred 
of  Lincoln   in,  390 

Photographs  of  Booth,  carried  by  de- 
tectives, 261;  Rollins  recognizes,  261; 
L.  B.  Baker  identifies  him  by,  268; 
Lightfoot  knew,  268;  R.  B.  Garrett  on 
identification  by,  268-9,  285;  Peddicord 
and  Hartley  compare  face  of  corpse 
with,  274;  many  copies;  wide  distribu- 
tion of,  285-6;  corpse  on  Montauk  photo- 
graphed, 285;  at  Conspiracy  Trial;  Ed- 
win's portrait,  286-7 

Picayune  (New  Orleans),  Baltimore 
correspondent  of,  on  Lincoln  "giving  us 
the  slip,"  44;  on  John  Booth's  Richard, 


428 


99;  on  his  ability,  his  hoarseness,  99-100 
Pinkerton,  Allan,  letters  to  Judd,  21, 
22,  24;  joins  Lincoln  party  in  Philadel- 
phia, 25;  employed  by  railroads;  men  in 
and  around  Baltimore,  34;  independent 
of  other  investigators,  38;  papers  of  his 
agents,  38-9;  earlier  and  later  history, 
47,  58;  see  Allen,  Maj.  E.  J. 

Piscataway,  in  Lower  Maryland,  199 
Pittsburg,  Pa.,  Booth  plays  in,  88 
Playbill  of  "Our  American  Cousin," 
says  Laura  Keene  has  played  Florence 
Trenchard  "upwards  of  one  thousand 
times,"  167;  variations  in  names  on, 
173??;  no  Jennie  Anderson  on,  211-2; 
forgeries  of,  212-3;  story  of  J.  T.  Ford's 
bloodstained  bill,  213 

Plot,  against  Buchanan,  14-15;  against 
Federal  government,   13-9;   against  Lin- 
coln in   '61,  26-8,  56-7;   against  Lincoln 
in  '62,  59-60;  against  Scott,  59;  to  burn 
New    York,    101-2;    to    abduct    Lincoln 
('64-5),    114  et  seq. 
Plug-Uglies,  Baltimore,  41,  109 
Point  Lookout,  Md.,  story  from,  about 
Booth  and  twenty  conspirators,  228 
Poisson,  Booth  plays,  at  Richmond,  85 
Police,      Washington,      supplemented 
during  the  war,  7;  Capitol  has  its  own, 
7,   17,   121-2  and  n;  Metropolitan  force 
has  no  detectives  in  Jan.  '61,  18 

Political  Societies  in  Baltimore,  41,  42 
Pollard,  E.  A.,  on  Baltimore  secession- 
ists, 109 

Pomeroy,  M.   M.,  of  LaCrosse  Demo- 
crat, calls  Lincoln  a  traitor;  if  re-elected, 
trusts  dagger  will  pierce  his  heart,  391 
Pontifical  Zouaves,  Rome,  J.  H.  Sur- 
ratt,  enlists  in,  as  John  Watson,  295 

Port  Conway,  Va.,  Confederate  mail 
route  via,  108;  Lucas  drives  Booth  and 
Herold  to,  254;  Conger's  men  reach; 
Lieutenant  Baker  gets  clue,  261 

Porter,  G.  L.,  assistant  surgeon,  wit- 
ness of   Booth's   burial   in  penitentiary, 

294 

Port  Royal,  Va.,  Confederate  mail 
route  via,  108;  Booth  and  Herold  cross 
Rappahannock  to,  255;  Miss  Peyton 
sends  Booth  to  Garrett's,  255;  report 
that  Yankees  are  searching  for  Booth  at, 
256;  Booth's  pursuers  at,  261;  St.  Helen's 
version  of  crossing,  343 

Portsmouth,  Va.,  Davidson's  story  of 
Booth's  secret  burial  there,  319 

Port  Tobacco,  Md.,  contraband  smug- 
gled to  Confederacy  via,  9;  the  abducted 
Lincoln  to  be  taken  to  the  west  side  of 
Port  Tobacco  Creek,  117,  124;  Atzerodt's 
home  at,  118;  story  that  Booth  was 
traced  thither,  230;  Jones  encounters 
Williams  at,  251 

Potomac,  monitors  in  the  river,  9; 
bridges  and  ferries,  193;  guards  for  lower 


river,  194,  198;  guards  for  upper  river, 
199;  patrol  boats  to  lower  river,  230; 
Booth  and  Herold  cross,  after  being  car- 
ried out  of  their  way,  252-3;  stories  of 
Booth  being  buried  in,  318;  St.  Helen 
wrong  in  date  of  crossing,  343 

Potter,  Major,  escorts  Mrs.  Lincoln 
from  Ford's,  183;  did  he  help  carry  Lin- 
coln out?  376 

Powell,  Lewis  T.:  see  Paine,  Lewis 

Powhatan  Hotel,  Richmond,  Booth  at 
(*6o),  86 

President's  House:  see  Executive  Man- 
sion 

Price,  Louisa  J.,  later  Mrs.  Payne  and 
Mrs.  J.  W.  Booth  of  Sewanee,  358-9 

Prince  George's  County,  Md.,  home  of 
the  Surratts,  106;  route  of  abduction 
plot  in,  117-8;  cavalry  sent  to,  after 
Booth,  199 

Proclamation,  Howard's  bogus,  33 

Provost,  (Miss)  Mary,  reopens  Wal- 
lack's  as  Mary  Provost's  Theatre,  88 

"Public  Man,"  anonymous  journal  of, 
on  plot  to  abduct  Buchanan,  15;  dis- 
believes Baltimore  plot,  37 

Pumphrey,  J.  W.,  Booth  hires  bay 
mare  at  livery  stable  of,  152,  154,  250-1 

Pursuit  of  Booth  and  Herold,  228-63 

v^uebec,  Booth's  wardrobe,  in  wreck, 
salvaged  and  brought  to,  322 

Quesenberry,  Mrs.,  Herold  gets  food 
from,  for  Booth,  252-3 

Radicals,  in  Republican  party,  op- 
pose Lincoln,  131;  resigned  to  his  death, 
383;  Stanton  not  friendly  with,  386; 
Mason  says  Booth  a  Northern  radical 
promoting  radical  plans,  387;  H.  W. 
Davis,  a  radical,  wanted  Lincoln  im- 
peached, 390 

Ramsay,  Maj.  Gen.  G.  D.,  command- 
ing Washington  arsenal  ordered  to  de- 
liver Booth's  body  to  Weaver,  307;  re- 
ports the  delivery,  309 

Raphael,  John  Booth  as,  90,  91 

Rathbone,  Maj.  H.  R.,  invited  to 
Ford's  and  accepts,  164;  sits  on  sofa 
in  box,  171;  fiance  and  stepbrother  of 
Miss  Harris,  172;  his  affidavit,  177^; 
wounded,  183,  209;  his  blood,  not  Lin- 
coln's, on  Miss  Keene's  dress,  211;  on 
the  time  of  his  leaving  for  Ford's,  213-4; 
as  to  height  of  box,  215;  as  to  Booth's 
vault,  216;  on  interval  between  shot  and 
vault,  216;  on  Booth's  cry  after  the  shot, 
219;  tells  who  were  in  the  box,  224;  kills 
his  wife,  227;  did  he  help  carry  Lin- 
coln out?  376 

Raybold,  T.  J.,  Ford's  Theatre  uphol- 
sterer, brings  Booth  letter  Friday  noon, 
152;  ornamenting  "state  box,"   153 


429 


Reconstruction  of  South,  Lincoln  on, 
136,  158;  less  conciliatory  policy  wanted 
by  radicals,  383 

Red  Necks,  Baltimore,  41 

Reeves,  A.  R.,  on  Booth  photographs, 
286 

Rehan,  Ada,  not  in  "Much  Ado"  in 
Chicago  in  '94,  369 

Reignolds,  Kate,  with  John  Booth  in 
Boston  ('63),  90;  ranked  him  high,  92; 
on  silly  women  eager  to  see  him,  94; 
on  his  faults,  95,  96 

"Renfrew"  the  spy,  Sheridan's  account 
of,  112-4 

Republican  (Baltimore),  on  riotous 
reception  in  Baltimore  of  main  part  of 
Lincoln  suite,  43 

Rewards  for  capture  of  Booth  and 
others,  Corbett  expected  extra  share,  got 
same  as  others  in  Doherty's  squad,  271, 
284;  myth  none  was  paid,  284;  actual 
amounts  paid,  284;  Moxley  ('03)  says 
none  paid,  312;  Kenzie  ('98)  says  none 
paid,  332 

"Richard  III,"  Lincoln  reads,  to  Hay, 
72;  Booth's  first  role  was  Richmond  in, 
83;  Booth's  study  of,  84;  John  and  Ed- 
win in,  84;  John  plays,  in  Baltimore, 
New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Wash- 
ington, New  Orleans,  88-9,  90,  91,  98,  99; 
with  power,  and  with  startling  and 
"horrifying"  effect,  94,  98,  99;  the  Pelew 
Islands  Booth  appeared  in,  in  Shanghai, 
326;  Armstrong  lectures  on,  327;  St. 
Helen's  alleged  fondness  for,  335,  348 

Richards,  A.  C,  becomes  Supt.  Metro- 
politan Police  (Dec.  '64),  165;  inspects 
Ford's  Theatre  after  the  shot,  183;  Der- 
inger  turned  over  to  him,  185;  his  pre- 
liminary investigation  points  to  Booth, 
192;  orders  all  streets  patrolled,  196; 
searching  Lower  Maryland,  200;  pre- 
fers charges  against  Parker,  223;  respon- 
sible for  Parker's  appointment,  225; 
thinks  Booth  in  D.  C,  has  no  authority 
(he  says)  for  house-to-house  search,  235 

Richmond,  in  "Richard  III,"  Booth's 
first  role,  83;  played  to  Edwin's  Richard, 
84;  played  by  Tilton  to  John's  Rich- 
ard, 89 

Richmond,  Va.,  Booth  in,  84-7,  95-6, 
326;  mails  from  Baltimore  to,  108;  Booth 
trying  to  get  from  Canada  to,  111;  plot 
to  take  Lincoln  to,  114-5,  !17'  Paine  saYs 
he  met  Booth  in,  116-7;  authorities 
there  not  back  of  abduction  plot,  123; 
Lincoln  visits,  133;  road  to  and  from 
Washington;  no  pass  required,  194; 
Booth  tries  to  send  wardrobe  to,  322; 
Rev.  J.  G.  Armstrong  of,  was  he  Booth? 
326-8;  Booth  not  leading  man  there  in 
'58,  366,  371 

Richmond  Grays,  Booth  with,  at  John 
Brown's  hanging,  86-7 


Richmond  Theatre,  Booth  a  member 
of  the  stock  company  of,  in  '58-9,  84-5; 
in  '59-'6o,  85-7 

Riots  in  Baltimore,  41,  43,  44,  45,  46 

Rip-Raps,   Baltimore,  40 

River  Queen,  Lincoln  travels  by,  from 
Washington  to  City  Point  and  to  Rich- 
mond,  132-3;  and  back  to  Washington, 

133-4 

Roberts,  W.  H.,  says  curtain  was  held 
till  Lincoln  arrived,  211 

Robey,  F.,  Cox's  overseer,  hides  Booth 
in  pine  grove,  250 

Rogers,  A.  J.,  member  of  the  Select 
Committee  on  Lincoln's  murder,  388; 
his  minority  report,  388 

Rollins,  William,  tells  Lieutenant 
Baker  that  Booth  and  Herold  crossed  at 
Port  Conway,  261;  guides  pursuers  to 
Bowling  Green,  261-2;  recognizes  photo- 
graph of  Booth,  261,  285 

Romeo,  John  Booth  a  perfect  Romeo, 
says  Mrs.  Gilbert,  92;  with  Kate  Reig- 
nolds as  Juliet,  95;  John  appears  in  the 
role  in  Washington,  98;  with  Avonia 
Jones  as  Juliet,  102,  322  n;  Edwin 
Booth's,   to  his   wife   Mary's  Juliet,  306 

Rope,  Surratt  leaves  twenty  feet  of, 
at  Surrattsville,  118-9;  an  °ld  one  found 
in  Spangler's  carpetbag,   207 

Ross,  Jennie  (Mrs.  W.  E..  W.),  story 
she  was  in  cast  and  saw  Laura  Keene 
climb  into  box,  211-2 

Ruddy,  F.  L.  Bates'  account  of  St. 
Helen's  story  about,  343 

Ruggles,  M.  B.,  one  of  three  Mosby 
soldiers  who  helped  Booth  at  Port  Con- 
way, 254-5;  tells  Booth  soldiers  are 
near,  257;  pursued  by  Conger  and  Baker, 
261;  his  unsupported  statement  that 
Booth  shot  himself,  272;  in  the  St. 
Helen  version,  343. 

Russell,  W.  H.  ("Bull  Run"),  on  cap- 
and-cloak  story,  32;  on  Stanton's  man- 
ner, 129;  on  Good  Friday  in  Washing- 
ton, 147 

Rust,  A.  C,  of  Arkansas,  attacks  Gree- 
ley, 52-3 

Ryan,  George  D.,  imaginary  alias  of 
D.  E.  George,  347  n 

Ryan,  W.  H.,  Harper  tells  him  George 
is  Booth,  338;  takes  unusual  pains  with 
embalming  body,  338;  about  visitors  to 
see  body,  339-40;  as  to  George's  deep 
blue  eyes,  349;  not  touched  by  Bates' 
arguments,  350;  and  no  initials  on 
wrist,  352;  says  George  had  sound  legs, 

353 

Rynders,  Isaiah,  and  "Rynders  mob," 
40 

Safeguarding  Lincoln,   51-74 

St.  Charles  Theatre,  Baltimore, 
Booth's  first  appearance  was  at,  83 


430 


St.  Helen,  John,  his  story  in  Bates' 
"Escape  and  Suicide,"  332  et  seq.;  liquor 
dealer  in  Glen  Rose,  334;  moves  to 
Granbury;  Bates  describes,  335;  knowl- 
edge of  theater,  of  elocution,  335-6;  tells 
Bates  he  is  Booth,  336;  Bates  declares 
him  alive  (1898),  337;  Bates  identifies 
George  as  St.  Helen  and  as  Booth,  339; 
his  story  (as  reported  by  Bates)  of 
Booth  and  Herold,  342-4;  errors  in  this 
account,  343;  wanderings  after  he  left 
Herold,  343-4;  meets  J.  B.  Booth  in  San 
Francisco,  344;  ascertainable  facts  about 
him,  344-6;  nearly  killed  in  trying  to 
murder  Wray,  344;  Black's  investigation 
of,  345;  Hood  County  people  disagree 
with  Bates  about,  344-6;  compared  and 
contrasted  with  George,  346-50;  money 
matters,  349;  no  handwriting  of  his, 
353;  refuge  in  Kentucky,  355;  slight  like- 
ness to  Booth;  older,  356;  not  Sewanee 
Booth,  360;  see  George,  D.  E. 

St.  Inigoes,  Md.,  order  sent  to,  for 
search  after  Booth,   198 

St.  Lawrence  Hall,  Montreal  hotel, 
Booth  and  Confederate  agents  at,  112; 
Booth  played  billiards  there,  285-6 

St.  Louis,  Mo.,  Booth  plays  in,  88 

St.  Mary's,  Ont.,  man  arrested  there 
suspected  of  being  Booth,  228 

St.  Mary's  County,  Md.,  contraband 
trade  in,  108;  search  for  Booth  in,  198, 
251;  report  of  cavalry  clash  with  con- 
spirators in,  228 

St.  Timothy's  Hall,  Catonsville,  Md., 
John  Booth  at  school  at,  80-1 

Ste.  Marie,  H.  B.  de,  informs  Minister 
King  on  Surratt,  299;  calls  murder  a 
Roman  Catholic  plot,  387 

Sample,  William,  Pennsylvania  ar- 
tilleryman, may  have  helped  carry  Lin- 
coln to  Petersen's,  376 

Sampson,  E.  H.,  of  Moline,  111.,  story 
of  secret  burial  of  Booth,  319-20 

Sanders,  G.  N.,  Confederate  agent  in 
Montreal,  112;  reward  offered  for  his 
arrest,  385-6;  calls  Holt  and  Stanton 
co-conspirators,  386 

San  Francisco,  St.  Helen  at,  344,  355 

Sattuck,  Maryland  rebel,  suspected  of 
attack  on  Sewards,  184 

Saugus  (monitor),  in  Eastern  Branch, 
157;  some  conspirators  held  on,  273 

Scar  on  Booth's  neck,  barber-shop 
jest  about,  149;  said  to  be  from  a  bul- 
let, 149,  277;  examined  at  autopsy,  274-5; 
Dawson  identifies  body  by,  275;  Dr.  May 
identifies  body  by  it  and  tells  how  it 
had  been  made,  276-7,  277-8;  Barnes 
describes  it  at  Conspiracy  Trial,  278; 
story  Armstrong  hid  a  scar,  and  his 
daughter  inherited  mark,  328;  Mrs. 
Christ  says  "Fox"  had  scar,  330;  St. 
Helen's  scar;  how  he  got  it,  345 


Scarf  pin,  crystal,  gift  of  Dan  Bryant, 
found  on  body  at  Garrett's,  266;  in- 
scribed, means  of  identification,  268 

Schenck,  Gen.  R.  C,  on  Baltimore,  49; 
Lincoln  tells  him  of  his  burdens,  127 

Schofield,  Gen.,  J.  M.,  Secretary  of 
War,  Johnson's  order  to,  for  delivery  of 
Booth's  body,  307 

"Scotch  cap"    (and  cloak),  31-2 

Scott,  Gen.  Winfield,  plans  for  Lin- 
coln's safety  at  inauguration,  16-17,  *9» 
26-7,  54;  Lincoln  meets,  30;  plot  to  as- 
sassinate, 59;  begs  Lincoln  to  be  digni- 
fied, 64 

Second  Mask  in  "The  Belle's  Strata- 
gem," Booth  plays,  84 

Select  Committee  of  Five:  see  Com- 
mittee of  Five 

Semmes,  Raphael  ("Ralph"),  of  Ala- 
bama, Mrs.  Christ's  story  of  taking  him 
and  Booth  to  Nassau,  329;  was  at  Mo- 
bile at  this  time,  330 

Seven,  Lincoln  and  the  mystic  num- 
ber, 375 

Sewanee,  Tenn.,  story  of  J.  W.  Booth, 
his  wife,  her  children  there,  358-9,  360 

Seward,  Maj.  A.  H.,  brother  of  F.  W., 
wounded  by  assailant  of  father  and 
brother,  188 

Seward,  F.  W.,  son  of  the  Secretary, 
brings  Lincoln  word  of  Baltimore  plot, 
26  et  seq.,  37  et  seq.;  arranges  arrival 
in  Washington,  30;  attempt  to  assassi- 
nate him,  183-4;  his  skull  fractured,  188 

Seward,  W.  H.,  letters  on  plots  (Dec. 
'60),  15;  Lincoln  writes  him  about  in- 
auguration, 16;  meets  Lincoln  in  Wash- 
ington, 30;  on  Baltimore  plot,  37;  on 
plots  in  '62,  59-60;  discharges  Gurow- 
ski,  73;  in  Cabinet  friction;  finally  strong 
for  Lincoln,  128,  134;  accident  to,  hur- 
ries Lincoln  back  to  Washington,  133; 
Lincoln  visits  him,  134;  had  called  Lin- 
coln "little  Illinois  attorney,"  134;  suc- 
ceeded as  senator  by  Harris,  172;  at- 
tempt to  assassinate,  183-4;  n^e  saved 
by  steel  frame  on  jaw,  188  (134);  ru- 
mors he  was  dying,  196;  coat,  clue  to 
assailant,  234-5,  Paine,  assailant,  found 
by  chance,  237;  learns  of  Lincoln's 
death,  298;  recovers,  buys  Alaska  ('67), 
299;  Henry  Adams  compares  him  to 
macaw,  299;  suspected  Benjamin  of 
backing  Booth,  388 

Shakespeare,  Lincoln's  knowledge  of, 
66-7;  he  talks  about  and  reads  from,  on 
River  Queen,  133-4;  St.  Helen  recites 
from,  335,  348;  Jesse  Smith  recites  from, 
344  n;  did  George  recite?  347;  supposed 
Booth  discusses,  with  Got,  379,  381 

Shenandoah  Valley,  Va.,  supposed 
home  of  Booth  in,  366;  inconvenient 
and  impossible,  371 

Shepherd,   W.   G.,   investigates   Bates' 


431 


story  of  Booth  survival  for  Harper's 
(24),  333  et  seq.;  impressed  by  Bates, 
but  not  an  expert,  333-4;  could  not  see 
irregular  ankle,  353;  from  handwriting 
he  judged  George  was  not  Booth,  353 

Sheridan,  Gen.  P.  H.,  his  story  of  spy 
who  looked  like  Booth,  112-4 

Sherman,  T.  H.,  on  Lincoln's  posi- 
tion in  box,  176;  on  Miss  Keene's  cool- 
ness, 210;  on  Booth's  landing  on  stage 
and  what  he  shouted,  219 

Sherman,  Gen.  W.  T.,  at  council  of 
war  with  Lincoln,  132;  Lincoln's  dream 
presages  news  from,   158 

Shreveport,  La.,  Confederate  meeting 
at,   with   speech   calling   Booth   Brutus, 

384-5 

"Sic  semper  tyrannis!" — Booth's  cry  to 
"Mrs."  Keene,  says  Owen,  211;  eleven 
heard  it;  do  not  agree  as  to  when  it  was 
uttered,  219;  Booth  says  before  the  shot, 
219,  302;  Weik's  story  of  the  schoolgirl, 
375-6 

Simonds,  J.  H.,  on  Booth's  oil  invest- 
ments, 103;  invites  Booth  to  Franklin, 
Pa.,  126 

Sinclair,  stranger  in  Wartburg,  Tenn., 
thought  to  be  Booth,  vanishes,  329 

Smith,  Lieut.  (Maj.)  H.  B„  chief  of 
Gen.  Lew  Wallace's  detectives  in  Balti- 
more, 46,  108  n,  109,  116,  138,  161;  ar- 
rests Arnold,  192-3;  exhumes  body  at 
Baltimore,  245-6 

Smythe,  in  Booth  plot;  double  of 
Booth;  his  horse  like  Booth's;  shot  in 
tobacco-house;  family  comes  to  New 
York,  361-2 

Soldiers'  Home,  Lincoln's  country 
house  near,  59,  62,  63,  140;  plot  to  seize 
Lincoln  near,  118-20 

Soles,  Jacob,  Pennsylvania  artillery- 
man, may  have  helped  carry  Lincoln  to 
Petersen's,  376 

Sons  of  Liberty,  anti-war  organization, 
130 

South,  The,  of  Baltimore,  jingle  in, 
on  hanging  Lincoln,  391 

Spangler,  Edman,  Ford's  Theatre 
scene  snifter,  104;  Baltimorean,  Ameri- 
can Knight,  140;  working  on  stage  on 
Friday  afternoon,  153,  171;  takes  Booth's 
horse,  156;  hands  hammer  from  stage  to 
box,  170,  215;  gets  Burroughs  to  hold 
horse,  174;  in  scenery  when  shot  is  fired, 
180;  sleeps  in  annex,  must  carry  pass, 
196;  did  not  make  hole,  mortise,  or  bar, 
205-6;  ignorant  of  Booth's  plans,  207; 
evidence  of  Dye  and  Ritterspaugh 
against,  207;  found  at  boarding-house, 
237;  moved  from  Old  Capitol  to  Mon- 
tauk,  273;  sentenced  to  imprisonment 
for  six  years;  sent  to  Fort  Jefferson,  295; 
pardoned  by  Johnson  ('69),  314;  named 
by  Sinclair  in  delirium,  328 


Springfield,  111.,  Lincoln  receives  elec- 
tion returns  at,  13;  his  farewell  speech, 
19-20;  hopes  to  return  to,  157 
Spur,  Booth's,  catches  in  colors,  216-9 
Stanton,  E.  M.,  blames  Lincoln  for 
creeping  into  Washington,  48;  letter  to 
retired  Buchanan,  56;  Lincoln  often  in 
his  office,  65-6;  tries  to  stop  Lincoln's 
theatergoing,  69,  161,  220;  fears  for 
Lincoln's  safety,  69,  132;  recommends 
Lomas  to  Sheridan,  112;  energetic,  dis- 
courteous; Lincoln's  appreciation  of 
him,  129;  comes  to  appreciate  Lincoln, 
134;  favored  for  Chief  Justice  by  Lamon 
and  Hay,  137;  announces  end  of  draft, 
146;  with  Grant  views  decorations,  147; 
and  Mrs.  Stanton's  regrets;  may  have 
asked  Grant  not  to  go  to  Ford's,  161; 
Lincoln  asks  him  to  spare  Eckert,  162-3; 
fear  he  has  been  attacked,  184;  at  Peter- 
sen's investigating  attack,  186;  Dana  on 
his  energy,  187;  at  Lincoln's  deathbed, 
189,  205;  tribute  to  Lincoln,  how 
phrased,  189;  did  not  delay,  189-90;  bul- 
letin indicating  Booth,  191;  thinks 
Booth  will  head  south,  194;  orders  to 
guard  approaches  to  Baltimore,  194; 
confidence  in  him  and  his  energy,  199; 
summons  Baker  to  Washington,  201, 
236;  Eckert  defers  to  his  wishes,  220; 
had  nothing  to  do  with  Parker,  Forbes, 
225;  did  not  tamper  with  wires,  225-6; 
Baker  tells  him  Booth  is  taken,  266; 
calls  Corbett  patriot  and  releases  him, 
270;  telegraphs  to  Dix  of  capture,  281; 
sure  of  Booth's  death,  283;  orders  Baker 
to  dispose  of  Booth's  body,  287,  293; 
criticism  of  his  secrecy,  291;  testimony 
regarding  Booth's  burial,  293,  294-5; 
Baker  brings  him  key,  294;  closes  Ford's 
Theatre,  296-7;  press  generally  praises 
him  for  closing,  but  Bates  and  Browning 
criticise,  297;  dismissed  by  Johnson,  304; 
Edwin  Booth  says  he  had  promised  to 
turn  John's  remains  over  to  family,  304; 
orders  medical  notes  on  Lincoln's  last 
hours  made  by  Dr.  Taft,  378;  Sanders 
calls  him  co-conspirator,  386;  not  friend- 
ly with  radicals,  386;  Donn  Piatt  on  the 
young  Stanton,  386;  Mason  charges  he 
misrepresented,  387 

Stanton,    Mrs.    E.    M.,    dislikes    Mrs. 
Lincoln,    induces    Mrs.    Grant    to    stay 
away  from  Ford's  Theatre,  161 
Star,  midday,  of  Mar.  4,  1865,  374-5 
Starr,  Ella:  see  Turner,  Ella 
Stebbins,  E.  N.,  storekeeper,  witness  of 
Booth's  burial  in  penitentiary,  294 

Stevens,  J.  G.,  resembles  Booth,  sus- 
pected, 228 

Stevens,  Thaddeus  ("Thad"),  pic- 
turesque character  in  Washington,  73; 
far-fetched  theory  that  he  and  the 
"Whiskey  Ring"  employed  Booth,  385; 


432 


says  Confederate  leaders  are  "incapable 
of  being  assassins,"  388 

Stevenson,  Harry,  son  of  Izola  M. 
Mills,  resembles  John  Booth,  367 

Stevenson,  J.  H.,  of  Baltimore,  friend 
of  Booth,  receives  Izola,  marries  her  to 
protect  her,  366,  367  n 

Stewart,  E.  C,  on  Booth  photographs, 
286 

Stewart,  J.  B.,  rushes  across  stage  in 
pursuit  of  the  escaping  John  Booth,  182, 
192;  sees  him  ride  away,  209;  as  to  the 
time  of  Booth's  shot,  214 

Stewart,  Dr.  Richard,  gives  Booth  and 
Herold  a  meal,  distrusts  them,  sends 
them  to  a  Negro  cabin,  253-4;  Booth's 
letter  to,  and  payment,  254 

"Still  Waters  Run  Deep"  given  at 
Soldiers'  Home,  118;  Lincoln  not  pres- 
ent,   119,    120 

Stimmel,  Sergt.  Smith,  on  Lincoln's 
carelessness  of  danger,  65;  on  his  physi- 
cal powers  and  difficulty  of  abducting 
him,  124-5;  on  weather  of  Apr.  14,  '65, 
149;  goes  on  duty  after  shooting,  183, 
185;  tells  of  feelings  of  reprieved  sol- 
dier, 192;  on  midday  star  of  Mar.  4,  '65, 

374-5 

Stoddard,  W.  O.,  on  interior  of  Ex- 
ecutive Mansion,  11;  on  piano  playing 
in  Washington  society,  11;  on  "guarded 
headquarters,"  60;  on  Lincoln  at  the- 
aters, 68 

Stone,  Col.  C.  P.,  on  National  Volun- 
teers, 17;  on  Baltimore  plot,  36-7;  his 
precautions  at  inauguration    ('61),  54 

Stone,  Dr.  R.  K.,  Lincoln  family  doc- 
tor, wrong  about  time  he  reached  the 
President,  214;  on  lodgement  of  ball 
that  killed  Lincoln,  214;  summoned  to 
Petersen's,  378 

Streets  of  Washington,  described,  5-7 

Sumner,  Charles,  attacked  by  Brooks 
(May  '56),  52;  with  Lincoln  at  theater 
('64),  69;  Julia  Ward  Howe's  retort  to, 
100;  hears  Lincoln  read  "Macbeth"  on 
River  Queen,  133-4;  at  Lincoln's  death- 
bed, 189,  205 

Sun  (Baltimore),  on  Lincoln,  42-3;  on 
conspiracy,  '61,  44;  says  John  to  be 
buried  in  Baltimore  Cemetery,  310;  on 
burial  place  in  Green  Mount,  315;  an- 
nounces burial  within  week,  318 

Sunday  Globe  (Boston)  prints  "He 
Almost  Saved  Lincoln,"  interview  with 
David  Dana,  340 

Surratt,  (Miss)  Anna,  buys  photo- 
graph of  Booth,  106;  testimony  regard- 
ing her  brother  John's  whereabouts, 
149  n 

Surratt,  Isaac,  in  Confederate  army, 
247 

Surratt,  J.  H.,  writes  of  Booth  in  Sur- 
ratt   home,    106;    in    Booth's    abduction 


plot,  115,  118;  a  Confederate  "runner" 
from  Baltimore,  118,  123-4,  247;  lectures 
on  the  plot,  120;  interview  in  Washing- 
ton Post,  120;  a  friend  of  Weichmann, 
121;  at  the  McCullough  benefit,  125; 
escorts  Mrs.  Slater  to  Richmond,  139; 
in  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  on  Apr.  14,  149  and  n; 
suspected  of  attack  on  the  Sewards,  184; 
Gleason  asks  for  his  arrest,  199;  ar- 
rangements with  Weichmann,  237-8; 
photographs  of,  sent  out  by  L.  C.  Baker 
and  War  Dept.,  285;  hides  in  Canada, 
reaches  Italy,  enlists  in  Pontifical 
Zouaves  as  "John  Watson,"  295;  subse- 
quent history,  299;  story  that  the  Pelew 
Islands  Booth  met  him  in  Rome;  he 
"loathes"  Booth,  325,  326;  is  protected 
by   the  Roman  clergy,  says  Ste.   Marie, 

387 

Surratt,  Mrs.  Mary  E.,  comes  to  Wash- 
ington from  Lower  Maryland,  106; 
Booth  visits  her  boarding-house,  106, 
125;  he  goes  there  on  Apr.  14,  153;  she 
and  Weichmann  drive  to  Surrattsville, 
153,  247;  arrested  with  all  in  her  house, 
237;  E.  V.  Murphy  thought  her  inno- 
cent, 238;  Weichmann  testifies  against, 
238;  Lloyd  also,  247;  Confederate  sym- 
pathizer, but  probably  ignorant  of 
Booth's  schemes,  247;  imprisoned  on 
monitor  Saugus,  273;  sentenced  to  death 
and  hanged,  295;  body  removed  to  ware- 
house, 305-6;  the  mythical  Smythe  said 
to  have  lived  near  her,  361 

Surrattsville,  Md.,  home  of  the  Sur- 
ratts,  106,  123;  in  abduction  plot,  118; 
Mrs.  Surratt  and  Weichmann  leave  for, 
153;  Gleason  asks  to  be  sent  there;  re- 
fused, 199;  Booth  and  Herold  halt  there 
in  their  flight,  246-7;  see  Lloyd,  J.  M. 

Survival  myth,  rise  of  stories  about 
Booth,  291-2,  318,  324;  Moxley  in  1903, 
312;  Pelew  Islands  Booth,  325-6;  Rev. 
J.  G.  Armstrong,  326-8;  Mrs.  Christ's 
story,  329-31;  and  Kenzie's,  331-2;  the 
wanderer  in  a  score  of  guises,  332;  Bates' 
story  of  St.  Helen,  332  et  seq.;  George 
and  Bates'  story,  338  et  seq.;  John  W. 
Booth  of  Sewanee,  Tenn.,  357  et  seq.; 
Smythe,  361-2;  "widow"  denies  in  New 
York  Tribune,  362-3;  Rita  Booth  denies, 
364;  see  also  the  Foreword 


Taft,  Dr.  Charles  S„  on  the  Lincolns* 
enjoyment  of  the  play,  176;  fights  way 
to  stage,  182;  refuses  to  have  Lincoln 
taken  home,  183;  on  Stanton's  tribute  to 
Lincoln,  189;  on  blood  from  Lincoln 
wound,  211;  says  shot  was  at  10:30,  214; 
on  distance  of  box  from  stage,  215; 
thinks  shot  part  of  play,  216;  lifted  from 
stage  to  box,  378;  article  from  notes 
taken  at  Stanton's  orders,  378 


433 


"Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The,"  Booth 
in,  97 

Tanner,  Corp.  James,  at  Petersen's 
takes  depositions  in  shorthand,  186;  on 
Stanton  under  strain,  187;  on  vague 
testimony  about  Booth,  188;  on  Mrs. 
Lincoln's  agony,  188;  on  Stanton's  trib- 
ute to  Lincoln,  189;  enough  evidence  to 
convict  Booth,  190;  sees  hearse  and  mil- 
itary escort  start;  rage  at  reporter,  191; 
on  Stanton's  orders  to  guard  Potomac 
below  Washington,  194 

Taylor,  W.  H.,  eyewitness  of  murder, 
sees  Lincoln  try  to  rise,  182;  on  Booth's 
leap,  216 

Taylor,   Zachary,  rumor  of  poisoning 

of,  57 

T.  B.  road,  the,  Booth  and  Herold 
travel  by,  246;  Demond's  letter  to  David 
Dana  about,  342-3;  Bates'  story  of  the 
password  given  by  Johnson  to  St.  Helen, 

342-3 

Teeth,  Booth's,  body  identified  on 
Montauk  from  fillings,  280;  body  iden- 
tified at  Harvey  and  Marr's  by  dentist 
from  Baltimore,  308-9;  noted  at  Weav- 
er's, 311,  313;  dentist's  chart  of;  Bishop 
draws  a  "peculiarly  plugged"  tooth,  311 

Telegraph,  service  interrupted  be- 
tween Harrisburg  and  Baltimore  on  the 
night  of  Lincoln's  journey,  29;  service 
from  Washington  accidentally  inter- 
rupted on  night  of  Apr.  14,  225-6;  dis- 
cussion of  this,  226 

Terrell,  Judge  A.  W.,  of  Texas,  writes 
"Our  Brutus,"' in  praise  of  Booth,  385 

Texas,  threats  of  disunion  and  vio- 
lence if  Lincoln  is  elected,  13-14;  Booth's 
smuggling    to,    111;    St.    Helen   in,   334, 

344 

Theaters,  Washington,  mentioned,  10; 
visited  by  Lincoln,  67-8;  crowds  at,  69-70 

Thomas,  ruffian,  suspected  of  attacks 
on  Sewards,   184 

Thompson,  Jacob,  Buchanan's  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior,  15;  Confederate 
agent  in  Montreal,  112;  Johnson  offers 
reward  for  arrest  of,  385-6 

"Three  glorious  days,"  rioting,  Balti- 
more, Apr.  19-21,  '61,  45,  75;  Lincoln 
conciliatory  even  after,  128 

Times  (New  York),  story  of  Lincoln's 
departure  from  Harrisburg,  31,  33; 
praises  John's  Richard  III,  89;  calls  him 
"intellectually  impressive,"  91;  on  the 
gala  performance  of  "Julius  Caesar" 
(Nov.  25,  '64),  101;  on  photograph  of 
body  aboard  the  Montauk,  285;  hopes 
resting-place  of  body  will  never  be 
known,  288;  opposes  re-opening  of 
Ford's,  297;  James'  letter  to,  on  resign- 
ing, 316-7;  Campbell's  letter  to,  telling 
of  wager  in  Calcutta,  324;  on  sorrow  at 
Lincoln's  death,  382 


Times-Dispatch  (Richmond),  L.  G. 
Tyler's  letter  to,  calling  Lincoln  "Bar- 
barian," 390 

Tintype,  St.  Helen  wants  it  sent  to  Ed- 
win, 336;  Bates  thinks  it  picture  of  one 
of  the  Herold's,  337,  354;  Bates  uses  it 
to  identify  George,  339;  Penniman  sees 
no  likeness  to  George  or  to  Booth,  351; 
Leadville  undertaker  on,  351;  Jefferson's 
supposed  identification,  351-2;  Dana  says 
may  be  J.  B.  Booth  II,  354;  meaningless 
identification  by  J.  B.  Ill,  354-5 

Titusville,  Pa.,  mob  attacks  man  re- 
sembling Booth,  228 

Tobacco-house,  Garrett's,  Booth  and 
Herold  sleep  in,  257;  Jack  Garrett  tells 
Conger  where  they  are,  263;  Conger  and 
Baker  decide  to  fire  the  building,  263-4; 
Booth  starts  toward  the  door,  265;  Mrs. 
Christ  says  Fox,  not  Booth,  was  shot, 
330;  Kenzie  says  man  shot  was  not 
Booth,  331-2;  Bates'  account  of  St. 
Helen's  story  about  Ruddy,  343-4 

Tod,  Gov.  David,  of  Ohio,  organizes 
Union  Light  Guard,  62-3 

Todd,  Dr.  G.  B.,  on  Lincoln's  visit  to 
the  Montauk,  157;  on  Washington  in 
mourning,  195;  on  dark  man  who  gave 
card  to  Forbes,  222;  saw  Forbes  in  dress 
circle,  223 

Tolbert,  Lieut.  W.  M.,  imaginary  Con- 
federate officer,  in  Calcutta  wagers 
Booth  is  alive,  324 

Toombs,  Robert,  on  Brooks'  assault 
on  Sumner,  52;  in  '61  calls  Lincoln 
"enemy  of  the  human  race,"  390 

Townsend,  Maj.  Gen.  E.  D.,  on  plots, 
58-9;  orders  delivery  of  Booth's  body, 
307;  gets  report  of  delivery,  309 

Townsend,  G.  A.  ("Gath"),  his  writ- 
ings on  Booth,  76-7;  embroiders  the 
"time"  story,  203-4;  says  Miss  Keene  en- 
tered "state  box"  by  stairs  in  rear,  209; 
says  Booth  entered  box  by  pretending  to 
be  a  senator,  223;  reports  Baker  on 
interment  of  Booth,  289;  his  material 
used  in  London  pamphlet,  377 

Townsend,  John,  violent  anti-Lincoln 
speech  of   ('60),  13 

Treasury  Guard  flag,  on  "state  box," 
171;  Booth's  spur  catches  in,  throws 
him,  216-7,  218;  later  history,  218-9 

Trimble,  Isaac  R.,  leader  in  "three 
glorious  days,"  45 

Troy,   Ala.,   monument    to   Booth   in, 

385 

Truman,  Helen,  on  Booth's  acting,  92; 
Augusta  in  "Our  American  Cousin,  de- 
scribes Mrs.  Lincoln's  costume,  171;  on 
Good  Friday  audience,  172;  on  tumult 
in  audience  after  Lincoln  was  shot,  182; 
says  Miss  Keene  was  in  box,  210 

Trunk,  taken  to  Baltimore  for  abduc- 
tion plot,  120;  Booth's,  National  Hotel, 


434 


contents,  192;  gimlet  found  in,  206; 
Edwin  Booth  asks  for  return  of,  306; 
three  trunks  with  Booth's  theatrical 
wardrobe  salvaged  at  Quebec,  burned 
by  Edwin   ('73),  322-3 

Tucker,  Beverley,  Confederate  agent 
in  Montreal,  112;  his  open  letter  accus- 
ing Johnson,  after  Johnson  offered  $25,- 
000  for  Tucker's  arrest,  386 

Tudor  Hall,  Booth  homestead  near 
Belair,   Md.,  searched,    197-8 

Turner,  Ella  (or  Ella  Starr),  tries  to 
commit  suicide  after  murder,  244;  her 
letter  to  Booth,  244;  subpoenaed  in 
Conspiracy  Trial  but  not  put  on  stand, 
244 

Tyler,  John,  presides  over  Peace  Con- 
vention, 18;  criticises  parade  of  troops 
in  Washington,  19 

Tyler,  L.  G.,  insists  Booth  shot  Lin- 
coln because  Lincoln  would  not  pardon 
J.  Y.  Beall,  373,  389;  even  in  1928  calls 
Lincoln  "the  Barbarian,"  390 

Tyser  or  Tyson,  name  given  for  Booth 
by  Herold  at  Dr.  Mudd's,  248 

Union  Light  Guard,  Lincoln's  escort, 
62-3,  140;  detail  from,  patrols  Tenth 
St.,   183 

University  of  Virginia,  story  that 
Booth  was  a  student  there  with  Beall, 

373 

Urbana,  111.,  man  with  mustache  there 
thought  to  be  Booth,  228 

Vallandigham,    C.    L.,    about    cap    and 
cloak,   32;    on   Lincoln's   failure   in    the 
war,    130;    New   York    Copperhead   says 
Lincoln's  salary  ought  to  be  turned  over 
to,  390-1 
Van  Wyck,  C.  H.,  attack  on,  53 
Vest,  Dawson  identifies  Booth  by,  275 
Veteran    Reserve    Corps,    soldiers    of, 
clear  way  from  Ford's,  183;  take  charge 
there,   196;  kept  on  guard  there,  238-9; 
Giles,  commanding,  closes  Ford's  296 

Vienna,  imaginary  Booth  seen  there, 
325 

Voice,  Booth's,  called  stronger  than 
Edwin's,  89;  variously  described  as 
husky,  low,  rich,  forced  overmuch,  94; 
hoarseness  not  cause  for  retirement,  99- 
100,  389;  St.  Helen's  as  described  by 
Bates,  335,  344,  345;  George's,  348-9 

Wadsworth,  Gen.  James  S.,  military 
governor  of  Washington,  58,  62 

Wade,  B.  F.,  opposes  Lincoln,  131 

Wagner,  Henry  C,  of  Baltimore,  at 
Weaver's,  sees  Booth's  body,  313 

Waite,  Maj.  John,  searching  Lower 
Maryland,  200 

Wallace,  J.  W.:  see  Dunham,  Charles 
A. 


Wallace,  Gen.  Lew,  commanding  Mid- 
dle Dept.  (Baltimore),  46,  49,  107;  on 
long  lives  of  members  of  Military  Com- 
mission, 375 

Wallace,  W.  H.,  and  Mrs.  Wallace,  in- 
vited to  Ford's,  163-4 

Wallach,  Mayor,  of  Washington,  an- 
nounces that  Lincoln  is  shot,  183;  con- 
troversy with  Richards  over  authority 
to  search  every  house  in  the  District, 
235;  closes  saloons  before  Lincoln's  fu- 
neral, 235-6 

Wallack,  J.  W.,  with  Davenport  leases 
old  Washington  Theatre,  118;  with  Dav- 
enport in  "Aladdin,"  147 

Warehouse  1,  Washington  Arsenal, 
bodies  of  Booth,  four  "conspirators," 
and  Wirz  removed  to;  kept  closed,  305-6; 
body  of  Booth,  those  of  Herold  and 
Mrs.  Surratt  removed  from,  308;  bodies 
of  others   also  removed,   31072 

Warne,  Mrs.  Kate,  Pinkerton  opera- 
tive, meets  Lincoln  party  in  N.  Y.,  Feb. 
'61,  24;  on  train  to  Washington,  29 

Wartburg,  Tenn.,  Sinclair  of,  story  he 
was  Booth,  328-9 

Washburne,  Elihu,  greets  Lincoln  in 
Washington,  30;  gets  word  of  plots  in 
Baltimore,  75 

Washington,  D.  C,  city  of  the  '6o's  de- 
scribed, 3-12,  51-3,  60;  to  be  seized  Dec. 
'60  by  Marylanders  and  Virginians,  14; 
to  be  captured  before  Mar.  '61,  16; 
Scott's  plans  to  protect,  16-17;  com- 
panies drilling  in,  17;  report  on  con- 
spiracy to  seize,  17-8;  troops  there  (Feb. 
'61),  18-9;  Dorothea  L.  Dix  on  conspir- 
acy, 36;  volunteers  arrive,  57;  amuse- 
ments and  theaters,  69-70;  picturesque 
characters,  73;  Booth's  first  appearance 
in,  97;  his  headquarters  in,  102;  Lin- 
coln returns  to,  from  Richmond,  134; 
gets  news  of  Lee's  surrender,  134;  Con- 
federate sympathizers  in,  135,  3go;  fes- 
tivities of  early  Apr.  '65,  134-6,  149-50; 
confusion  and  grief  in,  after  murder, 
190-2,  195-6;  main  exits  from,  193;  spec- 
ial policing  in,  196;  Booth  supposed  to 
be  hiding  in,  230-1;  saloons  closed,  235-6; 
Edwin  never  visited,  after  murder,  306-7; 
Pelew  Islands  Booth  hid  there,  325; 
Kenzie  says  Garrett's  tobacco-house  was 
on  outskirts  of,  331;  Dana's  story  of 
Herold  and  Booth  riding  into,  341;  St. 
Helen's  story  as  given  by  Bates,  341-2; 
"Mr.  Smythe"  in,  361;  hatred  of  Lin- 
coln in,  390 

Washington  portrait,  on  pillar  of 
"state  box,"  Ford's  Theatre,  171,  217; 
Booth  strikes  frame  of  picture,  217-8 

Weaver,  J.  H.,  sexton  of  Christ 
Church,  Baltimore,  Edwin  Booth  asks 
Johnson  to  deliver  John's  remains  to, 
306;  sees  the  President  and  gets  order, 


435 


307;  receives  the  coffin,  308;  examines 
the  body,  takes  it  to  Baltimore,  308-9; 
crowds  come  to  his  undertaking  rooms,  ' 
310;  identifications  there,  310-3;  places 
body  in  his  vault  at  Green  Mount,  313-4; 
record  of  burial,  315 

Weaver,  Rev.  Peleg,  of  North  Cos 
Cob,  supposed  to  have  married  Booth 
there  in  '59,  not  there  till  '71,  369-70; 
no  proof  he  officiate/1,  370-1 

Webb,  W.  B.,  chief  of  Washington 
Metropolitan   Police,  68,   165 

Webster,  Timothy,  Pinkerton  opera- 
tive,  in   secessionist  club   of   Baltimore, 

35 

Weichmann,  L.  J.,  as  to  plot  for  ab- 
ducting Lincoln  on  Mar.  4,  '65,  120-1; 
at  McCullough  benefit,  125;  in  Federal 
employ,  121  n,  135,  237-8;  leaves  for  Sur- 
rattsville,  153;  Gleason  asks  for  his  ar- 
rest, 199;  becomes  witness  for  prosecu- 
tion at  Conspiracy  Trial,  237;  furnished 
information  to  Surratt  for  transmittal 
to  Confederacy,  237-8;  learns  Confed- 
erate cipher  from  Howell,  245 

Welles,  Gideon,  unfriendly  to  Chase 
and  Seward,  128;  petition  for  removal 
of,  128;  as  to  poor  Federal  generalship, 
130;  at  Petersen  house  with  the  dying 
Lincoln,  185,  205;  praises  Johnson's  be- 
havior at  first  Cabinet  meeting,  197;  or- 
ders about  imprisonment  and  guarding 
of  murderer,  281-2 

Wells,  Col.  H.  H.,  searching  Lower 
Maryland,  200 

Westfall,  J.  W.,  seizes  stranger 
(Booth?)  at  Capitol,  inauguration  day 
('65),  121-2 

Whiskey  Ring  accused  of  hiring  Booth 
to  kill  Lincoln,  385 

White  Plains,  Md.,  Herold  at  Navy 
Yard  bridge  says  he  lives  near,  231 

Whitman,  Walt,  picturesque  char- 
acter in  Washington;  whiskers  thought 
a  disguise,  73;  on  "Our  American  Cous- 
in," 176 

"Widow"  of  Booth,  N.  Y.  Tribune 
story  of,  and  letter  from,  362-3;  Edwin's 
letter  to  Hutton  about,  363-4;  in  "This 
One  Mad  Act,"  Izola  Martha,  366  et 
seq. 

"Wife"  (Booth's),  of  Pelew  Islands 
Booth,  325,  362;  of  Armstrong-Booth, 
327,  362;  of  Sewanee  (Tenn.)  Booth,  358, 
362;  of  the  Booth  of  "This  One  Mad 
Act"    (Izola  Martha  Mills),  366 

Wigfall,  L.  T„  plot  of,  to  abduct 
Buchanan,  14-5;  ,011  Brooks'  assault  on 
Sumner,  52;  at  Lincoln's  inauguration 
in  '61,  54 

Willard,    Mrs.,    says    she    was    in    box 


next  to  Lincoln  and  shows  clothes 
stained  with  blood,  212 

Willard's  (hotel),  Washington,  Lin- 
coln and  other  Presidents  there,  8,  30; 
concert  hall  in,  10;  Pinkerton  there,  30; 
Peace  Convention  held  at,  30;  talk  at,  of 
mysterious  stranger  in  Capitol,  121-2; 
disorder  in  front  of,  on  Mar.  5,  '65,  122; 
Booth  in  public  rooms  of,  125;  the 
Grants  there,  147 

Wirz,  Capt.  Henry,  commandant  of 
Camp  Sumter  (Andersonville),  buried 
near  "conspirators";  body  moved  with 
theirs   ('67),  305 

Wise,  John  S.,  on  Booth  as  actor  in 
Richmond,  86;  on  Southern  feeling  at 
news  of  Lincoln's  murder,  384 

Withers,  William,  orchestra  leader  at 
Ford's,  150,  166,  172,  173,  175,  202;  talk- 
ing with  Miss  Gourlay  when  shot  is 
fired,  180;  recognizes  Booth,  190;  Booth 
runs  into  and  slashes  at,  209 

Wood,  alias  of  Lewis  T.  Powell, 
known  as  Lewis  Paine,  115 

Wood,  Fernando,  mayor  of  N.  Y., 
greets  Lincoln  coldly  (Feb.  '61),  23; 
urges  secession  of  N.  Y.,  111 

Woodland,  Henry,  Negro,  hides  skiff 
for  Booth  to  cross  Potomac  in,  252 

Woodward,  Dr.,  his  autopsy  of  Lin- 
coln, 215 

Wright,  George  W.,  as  to  St.  Helen, 

345 

Wright,  J.  B.,  Ford's  stage  manager, 
171-2,   173,   180 

Wright,  Mrs.  J.  B.  (Annie  F.),  on 
Mrs.  Lincoln's  costume  at  Ford's,  171-2; 
on  Lincoln's  attitude  in  box,  180;  saw 
Booth  hopping  like  a  frog,  181;  steps  in 
a  'cello,  183;  says  Miss  Keene  was  not 
in  "state  box,"  impossible  to  get  there, 
209-10;  on  Booth's  landing,  left  knee  on 
stage,  216 

Wyndham,  Sir  Charles,  on  Booth's 
ability,  92;  on  his  courtesy  and  wit,  93; 
on  his  genius,  98;  on  his  quarrel  with 
Clarke,  141-2 

Young,  John,  New  York  detective 
chief,  comes  to  Washington  to  capture 
Booth,  194;  in  Lower  Maryland,  200 

Zadek,  Dr.  Isadore,  his  opinion  on 
Booth's  fracture,  249 

Zeilin,  Col.  J.,  orders  to,  for  marine 
guard,  281 

Zekiah  Swamp,  marshland  of  Lower 
Md.,  109;  Booth  and  Herold  lost  near, 
250 

Zisgen  (Zisjen),  Joseph,  Kenzie's  story 
of  him  at  Garrett's,  331-2 


436 


( Continued  from  front  flap ) 

than  has  probably  ever  before  been 
attempted,  Mr.  Bryan  has  had  access  to 
much  previously  unknown  or  unused 
material.  For  example,  the  John  T.  Ford 
papers,  a  rich  collection  that  has  not 
hitherto  been  available,  have  been 
placed  at  his  disposal,  with  the  under- 
standing that  they  will  not  be  deposited 
in  the  Lincoln  Museum  or  elsewhere 
until  this  book  appears.  Numerous 
other  sources  have  been  drawn  upon, 
ranging  from  The  Players  in  New  York 
to  the  Library  of  Congress,  and  Mr. 
Bryan  was  fortunate  in  obtaining  first- 
hand information  from  two  men  who 
knew  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  a  signed 
statement  from  Booth's  nephew  who 
has  never  before  spoken  for  publication. 

The  illustration  material  selected  for 
this  book  has  been  unused  hitherto.  A 
full  bibliography  attests  to  the  impres- 
sive research  which  has  gone  into  the 
preparation  of  "The  Great  American 
Myth." 

George  S.  Bryan  was  born  in  1879 
and  is  a  graduate  of  Amherst.  He  has 
served  on  the  staffs  of  the  new  Inter- 
national Encyclopedia  and  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Americana,  and  was  managing 
editor  of  the  New  Standard  Encyclo- 
pedia. He  has  been  a  contributor  to 
other  important  works  of  reference  in- 
cluding the  Dictionary  of  American 
Biography.  His  books  include  biogra- 
phies of  Sam  Houston  and  Edison,  and 
he  has  published  articles  on  American 
history  in  a  number  of  magazines. 

The  picture  on  this  jacket  is  a  copyrighted  pho- 
tograph by  Hal  Reift"  of  the  Borglum  head  of 
Lincoln  in  the  Capitol. 


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